Choices
by MonicaMeMe
Summary: Danger follows the careless, and, as Dean and Sam find out, if you chase after it, it catches up with you sooner.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This is set post-Shadow. But it's also a self-contained story in its own right. I'm writing it in a way that I hope won't make it AU once more episodes air. If I pull it off, it should work as stand-alone story that draws on the issues brought out in 'Shadow'. I hope you enjoy! Please review, your comments (or suggestions) are always really appreciated :) 

**Warnings**: To be safe, I'll say spoilers for the whole season. And lots of Dean angst and DeanWhumping in later chapters. I might up the rating for the next chapter – depends if our boys feel like having such strong potty mouths this time round ;) And you'd do well to presume violence.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Supernatural in any way shape or form.

**CHOICES**

CHAPTER ONE

Dean's black Impala swerved around the corner, tires squealing and skidding on the frozen road as his foot pressed down on the accelerator.

Come on, Sam…Dean willed his brother, shooting a glance into his review mirror and almost blinded by the giant headlights shining into his car. He pressed down harder on the accelerator, even though he knew his car was driving as fast as it could. 

His eyes widened and his heart rattled in its cage as he saw the huge black truck jerk itself closer to his Impala. He breathed in quickly and shook his head, cursing Sam's slow rescue plan.

_Killed on Route 666 by a racist phantom_ _truck_, Dean thought dryly, _fan-fucking-tastic. Just the way I always imagined it. _

The two black vehicles zoomed down the dark, abandoned road. So dark, in fact, that the frantic chase would have blended into the night if it weren't for the unnatural light surrounding the giant, clunky truck, and the way that light wrapped itself around Dean's car, glinting off every metal surface so that the Impala almost sparkled in the cold, dark night.

His phone finally rang. Dean quickly grabbed it, and incredulously answered Sam's inquiry into his exact whereabouts. But his head suddenly whipped back and his body arched forward. That son-of-a-bitch truck had sped up and rammed into his bumper. Dean felt his fingers slip from the wheel for a second, felt the car spin, felt his tires screech in protest, felt his heart beat desperately against his ribcage.

He quickly tightened his grip on the wheel, though, and forced the Impala back onto the road, frustration teaming up with his fear to pump out more adrenaline and sharpen his instincts. "Son-of-bitch," he muttered angrily. But all frustration was instantly replaced by shock when Sam told him what he wanted him to do. Find the road, turn left, stop at seven tenths of a mile, and wait. Bring it to him.

Ignoring his disbelief, Dean did was Sam told him. He turned left, watched his speed, and stopped. And waited. Staring down at the large, looming, truck - its black coat glinting in the mist – Dean became lost in a temporary stupor, but the phantom truck revved up challengingly and brought Dean back to the present. He lifted his eyes in time to see the truck jerk forward and speed down the road, straight towards him.

At a loss for words, Dean chucked the phone down. He clenched his jaw in determination – or to keep his fear at bay, he wasn't too sure which himself – and gripped the wheel tightly, ignoring the instincts screaming at him to twist the wheel and get them out of the way.

The truck's engine grew louder, its lights brighter, its black coat more visible. It was mere seconds away from reaching Dean. No backing out now. His life was in Sam's hands.

So close now that Dean could've seen every detail of its bumper if the headlights weren't so blinding; he shut his eyes and turned away, anticipating the impact.

And then it came. The truck smashed into Dean's car with such force that his head flung backwards as his body arched out of the seat and his ears rung with the sound of metal colliding with metal. With the grating noise of one car scraping against the other as windows shattered and doors flung open, of dashboards breaking apart and metal groaning and creaking as it was forced to fold in on itself. It was a loud, fast, overwhelming cacophony of destruction. So loud, so invasive, so persistent that Dean was forced to let it soak into his consciousness as his body was flung backwards, as something smashed against his head, as something rammed into his stomach, as something snagged his wrist. He heard a snap, and another, a tear, a cry, a whimper, but it all flew into that deafening cacophony, swirling into his head until he couldn't tell the sounds of the car from his own body, until he couldn't tell what was hurting where. Only that he was flying and that his body felt engulfed by fire.

* * *

Sam held the phone close to his ear, straining to hear more. Had that been the sound of a crash? It was so muffled, it could've been anything. 

"Dean?" Sam asked fearfully. "You still there?"

No answer. Panic began to clutch at Sam's chest. "Dean?"

Still no answer. "Dean!" Sam yelled. A silence – thick, dense, complete – answered him. And the panic broke through.

"Oh god," Sam whispered, twisting around to look at the road Dean had driven down. It was dark – a long, winding street; an unlit, silent witness to an untold number of deaths. Had he just made a terrible mistake – would he find his brother at the end of the street, crushed in just another mangled carwreck?

Sam twisted back around to look at the farm truck that they'd borrowed. It was the only transport he had. It'd have to do. He ran up to it and quickly unhooked it from the truck they'd dragged out from the lake. He jumped in and, ignoring how ridiculous this should have felt, put it into gear and felt his body bounce on the seat as he pushed down on the accelerator. He prayed he would find Dean sitting in his car, smirking at Sam's concern. That his phone had gone flat. Telling Sam that his plan was stupid, risky, but that it had worked.

Those hopes were dashed the instant Sam saw the wrangled, black heap that used to be Dean's Impala. It sat so still it was almost a part of the night. Even the moon refused to glint off its mangled surface. Sam's foot absently lifted off the accelerator as his body grew cold – a cold unlike one he'd ever felt before. It was a cold – a shock - that absorbed all the other emotions crying for his attention. A cold that prevented him from feeling his own body as it robotically lowered itself off the farm truck and as his legs slowly walked towards the car. This scratched, dented, folded, crushed car. This broken car.

Shattered glass sprinkled the old road. Bits of it glistening with drops of red. But it was only somewhere in the distance did Sam hear the crinkling beneath his steps. He was too focused on the glistening red web that had weaved itself onto the car's windshield. On the limp hand resting on the steering wheel. On the slumped body hanging from his safetybelt.

Tears sprung, unbidden, to Sam's eyes as his numb fingers grabbed onto the hanging door frame and he fell to his knees. "No," he whispered weakly, "Dean." Kneeling this close, he could see Dean's blue lips, the lines of red running from his head, painting his face, dripping from his chin. He slowly reached out a shaky to feel for a pulse. To feel for life in his bloodied, cut, limp, bruised brother. In this broken boy.

There wasn't one.

"No!" Sam yelled, springing back up and running his hands through his hair, staring at Dean's still form in panic and frustration and disbelief.

"No!" he yelled again, something nagging at his memory. Something clawing at his chest, prodding for his attention. He scrunched up his brow, racking his head.

"This isn't how it's meant to happen!" Was it? No, something was wrong. Very wrong!

"Sammy," a low, weak voice drifted out from the car. From his brother's cracked lips. Sam's eyes widened and he dropped back to his knees. Dean's eyelids slid open to reveal pained eyes silently imploring Sam.

"Think," Dean mumbled. "Think, Sam."

Sam frowned, confusion hijacking his voice and strangling it so that only an unintelligible squeak escaped. But Dean's eyes were probing his in a silent, unwavering gaze. A plea. So Sam forced himself to breathe, to banish the panic and let in this nagging feeling instead. And a memory flashed across his mind. And then another, and another.

Sam's eyes widened further and his mouth slid open. "This has already happened!" he practically yelled. "I remember this. You didn't die, Dean. The plan worked. You're alive. You're meant to be alive!"

Dean, still slumped over and deadly still, let his lips curve into a relieved smile. "Atta boy, Sammy."

And then everything disappeared.

* * *

Sam's eyes flew open. He found himself staring at a stained motel ceiling through a row of dust glittering in the morning sunlight. Then instant black as something fell onto his face. Sam sprang up in his bed and ripped the jacket from his face, throwing it back at Dean with an annoyed glare. 

"Stop doing that," he said sternly.

Dean caught the jacket with one hand and grinned innocently. "You were awake," he excused, lightly throwing the jacket on the end of Sam's bed and continuing to pack his duffle bag.

"Yeah, I _just_ opened my eyes," Sam said, throwing off his sheets and checking the bedside clock. He frowned when he saw the time; it was almost 11.

"You're right, you sure did some serious sleeping there, Sammy. Late night with the Discovery channel?" Dean teased, plugging in the laptop and chuckling at his own joke as he turned it on, deciding to browse the local news while he waited for Sam to get dressed and packed.

Sam ignored Dean and swung his legs off the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees as he ran his hands through his hair. That dream was still clinging onto him, refusing to fade.

"What was _that _about," Sam mumbled to himself.

"Talking to yourself, Sunshine?" Dean asked absently, his eyes scanning over the daily headlines.

Sam frowned and shook his head, trying to dislodge the image of Dean's limp form. "Stranger things have happened," he answered quietly, finally standing up and pulling out some clothes from the bedside drawer.

Dean stopped scanning the digital news and looked up, finally noticing the deep frown etched into his brother's face. "What's got you all pseudo-philosophical?" he asked, watching Sam carefully.

Sam just frowned again and scratched his head, looking more than a bit confused. "Just a strange dream. I can't really shake it."

Dean partially closed the laptop, eyes slightly widening. "Like one of your…you know," he waved his hands up near his head.

Sam arched an eyebrow and stared at Dean blankly. "What the hell does this mean, Dean?" Sam said, mimicking Dean's unintelligible hand gesture, an amused smile tugging at his lips.

"You know," Dean replied impatiently, not happy at being made fun of. "Your whole, telekinetic, crystal ball thing."

Sam rolled his eyes at the definition, but let it slide. "No, I don't thing so. I mean, it felt…important. But…it was about something that's already happened, so it couldn't have meant anything. It just… felt so real."

Dean watched Sam carefully as his brother's face scrunched up into that frown again. Dean closed the laptop completely and gave Sam his full attention. "What thing in the past?"

"Hmm?" Sam said, looking back at Dean absently. "Oh, um, that chase with the phantom truck back on Route 666. Only it ended…different."

"Like a 'Choose Your Own Ending' book?" Dean asked, interested.

Sam smiled at this; Dean never ceased to surprise him with the bits of reference he had stored in his brain. "Sort of, I guess."

Sam looked up to find Dean staring at him expectantly. Not worried, or alert. Just curious. And waiting stubbornly for more detail. Sam sighed and decided just to tell him. It was a meaningless dream, after all.

"Well, in this…version…my plan didn't work. And the truck kind of, you know, plowed in to you." Sam look up at Dean with a shrug.

Dean frowned at this, sitting back in his chair. "It _plowed_ into me?" he repeated incredulously. "Geez, man, Freud would have a field day with this one."

Sam rolled his eyes, and pulled on a clean shirt.

"So how'd you know it _plowed _into me?" Dean asked, a teasing smile trying to escape onto his face. "You weren't driving the truck that was doing the plowing, now were you Sammy boy? Maybe you have some hidden murderous tendencies that I should know about."

Sam chuckled, pulling on some paints and reaching for his shoes. "No," he said. "I drove up to you in the farm truck."

"You _lumbered _to my rescue?" Dean smirked.

Sam grabbed the jacket and chucked it at Dean, who caught it easily and threw it back. Dean then opened the laptop again, and continued to scroll down, reading the headlines as Sam tied up his shoes.

Sam paused and glanced over at Dean. "So, you don't think there's anything more to it?" he asked tentatively.

Dean just shrugged a little, his interest already waning as his eye caught their next potential case. "Nah. You can't stop something that happened in the past and that, you know, didn't happen. All dreams don't come true, Sam. Too bad, 'cause I had this great one last night about Aniston and-"

Sam coughed.

Dean smirked self-consciously. "Yeah, yeah, too much information."

Sam nodded at the laptop. "Find anything?" he asked, pushing away the dream as best he could and ignoring any lingering concern and confusion it left.

It had been a few weeks since Chicago, and while both still bore faint scars on their faces from the Davar attacks, the physical marks were fading fast. Though, they'd been taking on cases – hunting – almost nonstop since then. Since they'd finally found their dad and made the decision to let him go again. To withdraw from the family's fight against whatever had killed their mom and Jessica until it was time for them to stop being liabilities and start being assets. Now wasn't that time. Dean had come to that realization. It had been his choice to break up the Winchester family again so that it could remain whole in the future. So now Dean needed to keep himself occupied – with the hunt – to keep moving and fighting – so that he wasn't forced to dwell on his decision. To regret it. And Sam understand that – the need to avenge Jessica was so strong, so present, that he too needed the constant hunt, the constant distraction.

"One thing in the local news," Dean answered. "Might be our kind of thing."

"What's it say?"

"Five missing people have all turned up dead now, each dumped at the side of Edmund forest. And, according to the initial police reports, each bearing a 'strange symbol' that faded within hours of the victims being found. They can't work out what caused three of the victims to die, while the other two were cut up pretty badly."

Sam nodded, absorbing the information. "Okay, we should definitely check it out. Probably try to work out what that symbol means." Sam stood up and grabbed his bag. "Why don't you see what more information you can dig up. Find out what the symbol means – and what it looks like, first."

"What are going to do?" Dean asked.

"Check out the crime scene. Where they found the bodies. See if there's anything there." Sam hitched up his bag and headed for the door, but Dean quickly jumped in front of him, stopping him with an outstretched arm.

"Whoa, whoa, hang on a second," Dean said, incredulity shining in his eyes. "Why do you get the good job?"

Sam returned Dean's look with a raised eyebrow and with a small frown that pursed his lips. "I'm checking out the scene where five dead people were found, Dean. It's not exactly the donut run."

"Better than being cooped up here doing the research. It's a nice day outside, a guy like me isn't meant to be cooped up on a day like this. That's your job."

Sam frowned, his weight shifting onto his other foot as he tried to understand his brother's logic. "Oh yeah, and why's that?"

"'Cause you're the college geek," Dean said matter-o-factly.

Sam rolled his eyes and glanced at the open, waiting laptop. He really didn't want to stay in this room – that dream still lingered here, mixing with the room's humid air and clinging to him unabashedly. And, despite his rational reassurances, and Dean's flippant ones, Sam still found it unsettling. He didn't want to be in this room longer than he had to, didn't want to dwell on how real that 'alternative ending' had felt. And ever since Chicago, Dean was stubbornly refusing to sit still for too long. If there was something to find, something to fight, he was there, guns blazing.

So Sam shrugged. "Okay, we'll both go check it out then. See what we can find and then do some research afterwards."

Dean nodded. "Over beer and hot bartenders," he added, waggling his eyebrows.

Sam snorted, and shoved Dean towards the front door. Dean smirked and reached out to open it, his sleeve pulling up at the movement, revealing his wrist. Sam froze, his insides shriveling in a sudden wave of shock and…deja vu. Sam grabbed Dean's arm and pulled it closer, inspecting it.

"Dude!" Dean exclaimed, wringing his arm away. "What the hell are you doing?"

Sam looked up at Dean with wide, startled eyes. "How'd you get that?" he said, pointed to the cut he'd noticed on Dean's hand. It was a small web of glistening red cuts sitting on the top of his hand, followed by the beginnings of a bruise that would end up circling Dean's wrist. The shape of the cuts, the position of the bruise, it looked startlingly like the hand that Sam had seen resting limply against the steering wheel, obviously having caught on the wheel after smashing against the windshield.

Dean looked down at his hand, turning it around to follow the bruise's path around his wrist.

"Huh," he said, frowning slightly. He then shrugged and looked back at Sam, no trace of concern on his face. "I don't know," he said, heading back towards the door.

"Wait, Dean," Sam said, pressing his palm against the front door and closing it, stepping between it and Dean. "What do you mean, you don't know? Think, something must have caused it."

Dean raised his eyebrow at the panic lacing Sam's voice. "Dude, who cares? It's nothing. Move."

"It's not nothing, Dean," Sam said, refusing to move.

Dean looked back at the miniscule web of cuts and the slight bruising, then back up at Sam and the worried expression marring his face. "You're right, take me to the emergency room now. I'm in desperate need of a Band-Aid. Maybe they have the ones with the Flintstones pattern."

Sam didn't look impressed. Dean sighed. "What is it, Sam?" he asked, letting the bag slide from his shoulder as he waited.

Sam opened his mouth, but quickly shut it again, looking away, realizing how ridiculous he was being. "It's just…my dream. The mysterious cut appearing after my dream about you in a wreck. I mean…"

"Yeah?" Dean prompted.

Sam shook his head. "I don't know what I mean."

"That's right," Dean said, grabbing his bag's strap and lifting it back up onto his shoulder. "'Cause you're talking crazy talk. It was dream. It meant nothing. You said it yourself – it was about something that happened months ago. Unless you have a time machine hidden in that mop of hair of yours, there's nothing to freak out about."

Sam automatically ran a hand through his hair. "It isn't mop-like."

"Whatever Fabio, let's go," Dean said, moving past Dean and out the door.

Sam let himself be reassured. Let himself follow Dean. He ignored the nagging feeling in his stomach – he locked it behind the motel door as he closed it. Locked it away without a second thought. The one that was shouting at him – trying to tell him that he and Dean were too overeager to distract themselves, too ready to immerse themselves in the hunt. They weren't being as cautious or prepared as they were taught to be. As they'd usually be. That their desires to escape their decision in Chicago – letting go off the chase, of their family, even if just for the time being - was just as deadly as the threat of the shadow demon had been.

Sam let the shouts fade into the distance as Dean drove the Impala down the long, winding road. It was quiet and felt almost abandoned. And Sam caught one last snippet from that nagging voice – Maybe even more deadly.

* * *

TBC 


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Sorry if the update seemed a while in coming (esp. compared to my last story) but it's busy times, so I'll most likely be updating every Fri/Sat just to give you guys a timeline.

Thank you _so _much to everyone who reviewed! I really really appreciate it. You guys rock my world ;)

**Chapter 2**

As Dean turned the wheel to access the gravel road that would take them to the crime scene, the flash of red and blue on his hand caught his attention. He glanced down at the jagged cut and spotty bruise and again tried to recall how he'd hurt it. The second he and Sam had hopped into the car, Dean had turned up the music loudly in a preemptive move against any further attack of questions from Sam, but that plan had backfired. Without Sam dousing him with concern, those questions had formed in Dean's own mind, and for the past 20 minutes he'd been mentally filing through his memories, trying to work out how he might have hurt his hand. He frowned and lifted his eyes back towards the road. Damn Sam and his paranoia; it was beginning to rub off on him. He'd probably just…hit in on the night table in his sleep…in a way that caused a circular pattern to crop up around his wrist. Right, that made sense.

Dean sighed, but it was instantly lost in the Deep Purple blaring from the speakers. He decided to tuck the worry away for now, draw it back only if he really had to. It _was_ just a scratch, after all. Not exactly life-threatening.

"Up there," Sam said, raising his voice to be heard above the music. He was pointing to a turn where the road was more or less replaced by dirt and gravel. Just ahead of that was the opening to an old, carefully preserved track into the woods surrounding this town. The area was portioned off by police tape.

Dean turned off the road and parked the car. "Yep. That long yellow tape would tip me off too," he teased, leaning past Sam to scope out the area.

Sam rolled his eyes and hopped out of the car, quickly heading towards the crime scene.

Dean scrambled to catch up. "Whoa, wait up. Some of us weren't born with giraffe legs, you know."

Sam smirked and shot Dean a sidelong look. "No, just their brains."

Dean frowned playfully, but it deepened into a real one once he saw the splatters of blood covering the sandy track, and the five chalk marks tracing the positions that the bodies had been found in. He ducked under the yellow tape and crouched down next to them, tilting his head to the side as he observed the chalk outlines. Small frown still knitting his brow, he reached out and, hand hovering in the air so not to disturb the area, traced the shapes.

Sam too ducked under the tape. "Notice something?" he asked.

Dean drew back his hand, his eyes continuing the roam over the chalk outlines. "Maybe," he mused. He stood back up and slowly walked around the crime scene, eyes focused, discerning.

Sam looked from his brother's calculating gaze to the area in front of them. According to the outlines, the five victims had been dumped a few feet away from each other. Though drops of blood splattered the whole area.

"Look at this," Dean said. Sam looked up. Dean was pointing to the blood that Sam had been observing just a second ago. "See that?" he prodded, looking up at Sam with raised eyebrows when Sam didn't answer.

"…Uh. Yeah," Sam responded, frowning at Dean.

Dean continued to stare at Sam, waiting for him to grasp at the significance of the bloodstains. Sam glanced back at them and shrugged, not knowing what to say. "Deaths are messy."

Dean sighed and threw up his hands. "Man, how you passed four years of college. The article said only two were found all cut up, right? The other three had no obvious sign of injury. But look." He pointed to the blood splattered ground again. "There's blood all over the place. It's like a Taratino flick."

Sam's head whipped back to the scene. Dean was right! In each chalk outline, blood splattered and stained the sandy ground and in three of the outlines, the dried rivers extended out to frame the chalked area in red circles.

"Huh," Sam said, impressed by his brother's deductive skills. He glanced over at Dean, a smile tugging at his lips.

Dean caught the look and sighed dramatically, a scowl hijacking his features. "It's rude to stare. Go be proud of some little orphan somewhere who grew up to end world hunger, or something."

Sam grinned. "What?" he said innocently. "I can't be impressed by my own brother?"

Dean drew back his head a little. "You're creeping me out dude," he said in a deadpan voice.

Sam scoffed. Trust Dean to find genuine compliments unsettling. "No, seriously," he said, pushing the topic partly because it seemed to annoy Dean, but mostly because he meant it. "You're good at this whole CSI part of what we do. Maybe after it's all over you can get into forensic science or something."

Dean didn't respond for a second. "Yeah, when it's over," he mumbled, his voiced weighed with a dry sarcasm. Sam glanced over at Dean and saw that his playful expression had clouded over. His face looked dark, his eyes distant. Sam opened his mouth to say something, realizing he'd pushed into sensitive terrain. They hadn't yet really discussed what Dean had burst out back in Chicago. Neither knew what else there was to say. So they'd locked away that conversation – ignored it, pretending the ramifications didn't exist. But the issues it had brought out were obviously still there, simmering close to the surface.

Before Sam could say anything though, his ears prickled with the sound of…whispering. Both he and Dean instinctively whipped around. Towards the woods. Towards the voices. If you could call them that.

Traveling through rustling leaves floated a cacophony of soft whispers – overlapping, indistinguishable, unintelligible. The whispering floated in the breeze, danced around the brothers, tickled their ears. Beckoned them with wordless whispers, willing them to enter the forest. And though both had quieted their breath, listening intently, trying to work out what was being said, neither could make any sense of it. It wasn't English, or Latin, or something else even vaguely familiar. It wasn't anything. But somehow both knew that the voices were calling them forward.

And then, with a collective breath, the whispers disappeared.

Dean looked over at Sam, who returned his gaze with wide eyes.

"Okay, definitely something supernatural," Sam mumbled.

Dean reached into his bag and pulled out a gun, tossing it to Sam before retrieving one for himself. "Ready to follow the siren call?" Dean held out his gun and cautiously began moving into the forest.

Sam followed, eyes alert, taking in the tress and shrubbery surrounding them with bated breath. "Let's just hope it doesn't lead us to our demise," Sam muttered.

"Maybe we'll find a group of hot chicks clad in togas instead," Dean whispered, grinning at the thought.

"That was the point, Dean," Sam reproached. "In the story the deadly siren call _was_ a from a group of…" Sam sighed. "Never mind."

Dean glanced over his shoulder at Sam and smirked. "You're so easy," he said, shaking his head and turning back around.

Sam hadn't realized just how thick these woods were. They'd been walking for barely five minutes at a slow, cautious pace, but already the trees had grown so thick – their roots so tangled, their branches so thick and full – that barely any light illuminated Sam and Dean's path. The only indication that it was still day was the sunlight shooting through the gaps in the trees. Spots of it here and there that had managed to escape the wood's leafy fortress.

Dean stopped suddenly, almost causing Sam to bump into him. He lowered his gun and rubbed his shoulder, rotating it. "Why would the hot toga chicks invite us in here if they're too shy to show their faces," Dean complained. "If I wanted a nature tour I'd stay up watching National Geographic with you."

Sam rolled his eyes. "Not toga chicks, Dean. Bad, scary killers. Or killer."

"Or demon. Or spirit. Or possessed squirrel," Dean muttered. He looked around for second. Then took a deep breath and, to Sam's complete shock, yelled out as loud as his lungs allowed. "Psychopathic, possessed squirrel guy, you rang!"

Sam grabbed Dean's arm roughly. "What are you doing, Dean?" he asked angrily, eyes still wide with shock.

"Ger' off me," Dean responded, frowning at Sam's grip and wringing his arm away.

Sam let go but stood there glaring at Dean, unable to believe that Dean had just did that. Was he trying to get them killed!

"Dude, chill, before you have a stroke or something," Dean said flatly. "You want to face this thing here, close to the path, guns still in our hands? Or do you want to let it lure us deeper into his turf? I choose the first option, but hey you're the college educated one, you tell me."

Sam just shook his head. He had to begrudgingly admit that Dean was probably right. But it was still a reckless – stupid – move. What they really should be doing was getting out of there and working out what they were up against before recklessly chasing after it.

Dean watched Sam hesitate and let a blank look slide onto his face. He shrugged. "Okay, you're the future lawyer. The brains in this family, right? You know best." He turned and strode deeper into the forest.

Sam frowned, mouth struggling to form a response. "Dean!" he yelled out, annoyed and confused, quickly following after him. "What's your problem?" he asked angrily, finally catching up with Dean, who continued to march resolutely ahead, gun drawn, eyes alert.

"Well, sometimes my hair doesn't always sit the way it's s'posed to…"

Sam sighed, running a hand through his own hair in frustration. "Is it because of what I said earlier?" Sam asked, ignoring Dean's attempts to shrug off the subject. "About what you'll do after this is all over?"

Dean just grinned and continued walking ahead, deeper into the woods. "You read too much into things, Sammy. It's something to do with that whole New Age sensitive thing you got going on. But word of advice? Chicks may dig that. Us guys, we don't."

"Dean," Sam said in growing frustration.

"Sam," Dean mimicked, walking yet deeper into the darkening woods.

"Look, I know you don't like what I have to say about all this. But Dean," Sam implored, "getting a chance to live a normal life after we find mom's killer is a good thing. For both of us," Sam added, watching Dean clench his jaw and shut his eyes momentarily.

"Do you really think this is the time or place, Sammy? Airing our dirty laundry to the whispering sirens and whatever the hell else is here?" Dean finally said.

Sam laughed humorlessly. "Why not," he said. "A dark wood possessed by evil seems like the perfect place for this conversation."

Dean shot Sam a look before stubbornly continuing to ignore him.

Sam was growing more frustrated. God, Dean could be stubborn. If he just talked things through, and listened to people, he might see that a life existed beyond all this. All this death and danger.

"There'll always be things to hunt, Sammy," Dean finally said. "People to save. You'd really let go of that responsibility?"

"There are human monsters too, Dean," Sam said quietly. "And you fight them in courtrooms. Without flamethrowers."

Dean rolled his eyes.

Sam caught the look and it only fueled his frustration. "Dean, I don't understand why you won't even contemplate a normal life after all this! Why not just try it before dismissing it so fast."

Dean stopped suddenly and whipped around, facing Sam, a shadow passing over his eyes. "Normal life? I'm dead! Buried with a grave marker and all! Remember that? And, legally, a suspected murderer! I did all that to help out one of your college pals, Sam, so tell me, how can I do the white picket fence and community fundraiser thing when for all intents and purposes I don't even exist. Huh?"

The anger Sam had been feeling suddenly evaporated. "Dean…" Sam said, voice softening, and eyes along with it.

But he was cut off by a harsh laugh that ripped through the forest and into their conversation. Sam and Dean whipped around, guns drawn.

But the laugh faded and no one came out of the thick brush to claim it. Dean slowly turned back to Sam, but on seeing what was behind Sam's shoulder, his eyes widened and he paled a little. Sam frowned at Dean's expression, before realizing he was staring at something over his shoulder. Sam quickly whipped around, and gasped, stumbling back a bit.

Staring at them from a large, tangled tree trunk was a giant symbol. Painted in blood. Thick red drops dripped down the symbol and stained the bark red.

"Wow," Sam breathed, after taking a second to compose himself.

"That about sums it up," Dean muttered, taking in the image before them.

"Is that the same symbol that was found on the bodies?" Sam asked.

Dean titled his head, looking it up at down. Jesus, that was a big mark. "No," he finally answered. "They're different."

"How so?"

"Well," Dean scrunched his face and scratched his head. "The other one was more…" he made a motion with his hands "…curvy." Dean nodded, satisfied with his explanation.

Sam snorted. "Yeah, thanks."

Dean just shrugged. "Hey, you got Dad's journal?"

"Uh, yeah, I think so," Sam said, brining his canvas bag forward on his shoulder and rummaging through it for a second.

"Here," he said, pulling out the well-worn book. "You recognize it?"

"I think so," Dean said absently, flipping through the pages. "Uh huh!" He turned the book around to show Sam. On one of the pages near the back, John had sketched a symbol that was an exact – if smaller – replica of the one dripping in front of them.

Sam smiled. "Looks like dad was prepared for anything."

Dean turned the journal back around and quickly read the notes their dad had scrawled beneath the drawing. "Okay, so apparently it's the symbol that a certain creature of Aztec descent leaves after his ritual kills – uses the blood of his victims." He looked up at Sam and shrugged nonchalantly. "They're rare, dad writes that he hoped most of them had died out by the Industrial boom – harder to get followers when people turn to technology to answer their prayers instead of crazy god-wannabes."

"But this one has obviously worked out that he can just kidnap his followers," Sam nodded.

"Lure them into the woods with the promise of beautiful ladies," Dean grinned. "I like his style."

Sam scoffed in disapproval. "Dean, there are no girls. The whispers were coming from the creature." He shook his head. "Even on the hunt, one thing on your mind."

Dean chuckled, chucking the journal back to Sam. "Well at least we know it's death-friendly. These things are corporeal. Bullets, flamethrowers…a good pounding…anything should do the trick." He checked his gun's cartridge and grabbed some more bullets from his pocket, sliding them into the empty rounds.

"Let's get this over with."

"Wait, Dean," Sam said. He looked back over at the symbol with a troubled frown, and ran a hand through his hair as he looked back from where they'd come from.

"What?" Dean prodded.

Sam scrunched up his face in concentration. "Something's not right," he mumbled. Off of Dean's questioning look, Sam elaborated. "Only two of the bodies were found…you know…bloodied. The others had no visible injuries. Why would this creature only sacrifice two of his victims. That doesn't fit this thing's MO. And," Sam quickly continued when he saw Dean open his mouth to cut in, "why was a different symbol found on those bodies. A symbol that _faded_ after a few hours of being found. Something's not right here, Dean."

Dean sighed and looked back at the giant symbol absently. "Trust you to complicate things, Sammy. Maybe it's a two creature killers for the price of one deal, I don't know." Dean suddenly straightened up and frowned, his eyes locked on the symbol.

"Dean?" Sam asked, looking from his brother's discerning gaze to the red tree trunk.

Dean either didn't hear Sam or was ignoring him. He stepped up closer to the mark, leaning his head forward to peer at it more closely. Suddenly he reached out and pressed his palm against the glistening red drops.

"Dean!" Sam said, aghast. "What are you doing?"

Dean pulled his hand away and looked at it. Grinning in satisfaction, he held it out for Sam to see. There was nothing on his palm. Just the faint outline of bark from having pressed against it. No red. No blood.

Sam's mouth slid open and he walked up to Dean, pulling his hand forwards to take a second look. "That's impossible."

"It isn't real," Dean shrugged. "The whole thing's an illusion."

Sam stared at Dean, then to the tree, then back at Dean. He tentatively reached out and brushed his fingertips against the symbol. When he pulled away, they too were clean.

"How…" he began to ask Dean, trailing off as he shook his head.

Dean's self-satisfied grin widened. He raised his index finger and tapped his head. "These kind of smarts they don't teach you in Stanford. Pay close attention, young Skywalker, and you might learn something."

Sam scoffed. "Uh huh."

Dean pointed to the base of the tree. "Look. The blood is doing that whole oozing and dripping thing, yet…" He fanned out his hand like a magician's assistant revealing a trick. "There's no puddle. The blood just oozes and drips out of existence. See, the fading thing does fit this dude's MO after all."

Sam leant in closer to the tree, following one of the droplets as it dripped down the trunk and into…oblivion. It never hit the ground beneath.

"I got the brains and the eyesight," Dean smirked. He then tilted his head, thinking. "And the looks," he added. "Boy, do you have a bone to pick with the gene pool, or what."

Sam wasn't really paying attention to him, though. His forehead was scrunched up and he was looking around them. "I think we should get out of here, Dean," he finally said, looking at his brother earnestly.

"Why?" Dean asked blankly, miffed that his insult had passed unnoticed. "We're already here, might as well hunt down this bitch. If we're quick, we might get back in time to hit the bar before the red-headed chick's shift ends."

Sam raised his eyebrows and shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently. "You serious? Dean, this isn't like shopping for groceries – we don't just chase after something dangerous because we're in the area. We need to go and figure out what we're dealing with – what the other symbol means, why they're all fading…You know, the whole be prepared thing."

Dean smiled playfully. "Ah, Sam," he said in mock affection, "you worry too much. Seriously man, botox is expensive – don't want to be frowning so much." He punched Sam in the arm.

But suddenly Sam wasn't there anymore. He was on that street – route 666. He was bending by the car, he was clutching the dangling door. He was feeling for his brother's pulse. He was crying out in horror when no rhythm beat against his fingers. He was hearing a laugh behind him. He was whipping around just in time to see a flash of short, blonde hair. And then he was hearing someone shouting his name and he was opening his eyes.

Sam found himself on the ground, his fingers digging into the dirt and leaves, snapping small twigs as he breathed in deeply and tried to get his heart rate back under control.

"Sam!"

Sam swallowed and forced himself off the ground and into a sitting position, his eyes traveling to the person in front of him. He sprung back with a strangled gasp as Meg smiled back at him. But he blinked and she was gone, replaced by Dean, who was crouching in front of Sam with wide, startled eyes.

"Hey," he said, clutching Sam's shoulder tightly, trying to calm him. "You okay, man?"

Sam stared at his brother uncomprehendingly for a moment before taking in a shuddering breath and letting his sweat-drenched head drop into his open palm. "Yeah," he said.

Dean watched him for a moment. "Don't do that again!" he finally yelled. Sam looked up at Dean with a frown. "I shove you and you _collapse?" _Dean continued._ "_Jesus, I'm never going to be able to kick your ass again. Ever."

Despite Dean's harsh tone, Sam noted how pale his face was and the fear retracting in his eyes. He smiled gently, placatingly. "Don't worry, Popeye, you can still eat your spinach. It wasn't you, it was…that dream again…" he trailed off. He could still feel the cold metal of the door on his hands, could still feel Dean's cold flesh on his fingertips. He sighed and ran his hands through his hair, trying to shake the image.

Dean's eyes were sparking with a battle between concern and confusion. "That dream about something happening on Route 666 that never happened? You had that dream now, in a bunch of creature-infested woods, in the middle of the day?" Dean absently scratched at his head.

Sam shrugged, as baffled as Dean. But he gasped when he looked up at his brother, the colour draining from his cheeks. "Dean," he said shakily, pointing to the place Dean had been scratching.

"What?" Dean's self-consciously touched area, and frowned in surprise when he felt something warm and sticky greet his fingers. He pulled them back to find them coated in blood. He looked up at Sam in shock.

Sam blinked rapidly, dread winding up in his chest. On Dean's forehead sat a small crisscross of web-shaped cuts – as if he'd hit in against a windshield. They weren't large or deep. But that wasn't what concerned Sam. This was the second time he'd experienced this 'dream', and the second time a shadow-injury had followed. And, judging from the way Dean was dabbing his head and then staring at his red fingers in confusion, Dean also grasped the connection. And didn't like it.

"I think we should go now," Sam said bluntly. They had to get away from this place and work out what was going on. Before Sam's dream manifested into something worse.

Dean nodded, eyes still a bit wide from the shock of seeing his brother collapse, and then finding another mysterious injury cropping up without his knowledge. "You don't have to tell me twice," he said, helping Sam up off the ground.

Dean then cocked his head. "Well, actually you did," he corrected. "But -"

His sentence was cut short as an invisible force plowed into him and he was flung backwards.

"Dean!" Sam shouted, before he too found himself flying through the air.

Dean landed in an ungainly heap, his head falling just short of a large, jagged rock. He forced himself up, coughing and sucking in deeply, winded from the fall. He looked over at the rock that had almost cracked open his skull. "Son of a bitch," he muttered, springing off the leafy ground and brushing himself down, annoyed by the turn this hunt was taking. "Why do I always gotta be flying through the air," me muttered, annoyed.

Dean looked up to see if Sam was okay, and found him bent over something on the ground, staring at it intently. "What are you doing all the way over there?" Dean called.

Sam looked over at his brother. "I found something," he said.

Dean jogged over, looking down to see what Sam found so intriguing. Sam had brushed away a clump of dirt and leaves, revealing a rusted mental plaque beneath. Dean shoved away some more of the leaves with his foot. Inscribed on the plaque in Latin was a single word. "Believe," Dean read, frowning. He looked over at Sam. "And what? You'll fly? You'll touch the sky?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know," he answered absently, missing Dean's reference. "But why's it written in Latin. Wasn't this creature a descendent from the Aztecs?"

"Does this look like it's going to be one of those hunts that makes sense?" Dean answered. "What happened to good old vengeful spirits and beheading horseman. You know, the nice and simple hauntings. Not all this fancy stuff."

"You're starting to sound your age, Grandpa," Sam said, amused.

"How'd you find the plaque anyway," he asked, frowning at Sam and choosing not to respond to the insult.

"I kind of…landed on it. When we were flung back."

"Ouch," Dean smirked. He quickly turned around, looking back towards where he had landed. "I wonder what I got," he said, almost excitedly, hurrying to check.

Sam scoffed. "From Grandpa to five year old," he muttered under his breath, following.

Dean was using his foot to move aside the leaves and dirt, but his efforts revealed nothing.

Sam looked at him skeptically. "I can't believe you look disappointed."

Dean shrugged. But before he could respond, both froze as the brush beside them began to rustle, they slowly looked over, each instinctively taking a step back and drawing their guns forward. But, to their surprise, nothing jumped out at them from behind the leafy bush – instead, it parted to reveal an opening. That rock that Dean had almost hit his head on wasn't a rock at all, it was part of a hidden cave whose opening was now beckoning them.

Both blinked at the opening for a second, before simultaneously turning to look at each other.

"Yeah," Dean said sarcastically. "We're just going to stroll right on in. We didn't even say Open Sesame."

A scream suddenly rang out of the cave and tore through the air – young, terrified, broken – making the brother's jump.

Dean sighed and rubbed his head, before accidentally grazing his cut and quickly pulling away.

Sam was peering into the cave, trying to see something beyond the blanket of shadows. He looked back at Dean. "It could be a trap," Sam said. "It probably _is_ trap." Watching Dean carefully, he then voiced what Dean was thinking. "But it might not be," he sighed.

Dean shrugged, not knowing what else to do. "I'm going in," he said, looking like it was the last thing he wanted to do. But Sam also noticed the determination beginning to override his uncertainty – to harden his face and his eyes.

"Dean, it lures people to it. The whispers…now the scream. It's a trap."

"It _lures_ people in," Dean repeated. "As in, that could be a lured in girl. I can't just leave her there, Sam."

Sam shook his head incredulously, the dread again beginning to prickle his chest. "Dean, it's a trap. Trust me, this doesn't feel right."

Dean sighed impatiently. "Yes, okay! It probably is a trap. But you really expect me to take that chance, Sammy?"

Sam looked around restlessly, his foot tapping against the ground in frustration. "I…no, of course not. But, I want us to know what we're up against here before we just walk right into its home. Just…Let's just…I want to stop and think for a second. Dean, you're too hungry for the hunt right now."

Dean's eyes widened at that last comment. What was that supposed to mean? He stepped up to Sam, his face hardening. "Life doesn't always give you want you want, Sam."

Shocked, Sam let his frustration wash over so that his face, too, hardened. "Believe me, I know," he spat back.

Dean stared at Sam for a second before shaking his head and waving Sam off angrily. "I'm going in," he said tightly. "You stay here. No use both of us being 'lured' in. If I'm not back in 15…"

"What?" Sam prodded, his incredulity and frustration tightening his own voice.

"Well, then you were right and it was trap," Dean grinned sardonically, heading into the cave. Though he popped back out a second later, and quickly handed Sam some spare bullet cartridges. "Be careful," he warned, pointing a finger at Sam. "I mean it."

Sam watched Dean until his back disappeared into the dark cave, and listened until his footsteps retreated out of echoing range. He sighed, suddenly overcome with exhaustion, and lent back against the rocky side of the opening. He kept his eyes and ears peeled.

Since leaving Chicago, all they'd been doing was hunting and driving and more hunting. The physical strain of it was beginning to eat at his stamina, and the emotional strain of carrying around the weight of what happened in Chicago was arguably worse. He'd seen the end of all this – it was there in front of him, there with his dad. But they'd let it go – let him go. And now they were just filling time until they could get into the real fight – the one that sparked Sam's drive and kept him going. The one that would let him avenge Jessica's death.

"Sam!"

Sam sprung up from his slumped position, whipping around to face the cave.

"Sam!"

"Dean!" Sam yelled into the cave, just before he heard a gunshot and the sound of rocks collapsing. And then deathly silence.

Face growing pale, eyes widening, Sam ran into the dark cave.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Choices: Chapter 3**

Dean's footsteps echoed in the cold, damp cave. Somewhere in the distance he heard water dripping. Or, what he hoped was water. His torch's wide beam easily cut through the blotchy darkness, swathing the cave in a hazy light. It was a large cave, with walls that jutted out in places, creating spots of shadows that Dean's torch was quick to illuminate. So far, each black blemish had turned out to be nothing more sinister. Just shadows.

Dean held his torch higher and aimed it in front of him. He squinted his eyes but for the life of him couldn't see an end to this cave – just more black shadows that stretched on forever, as far as he could tell.

"How big is this fricken cave," Dean muttered to himself, already beginning to feel weary of his choice to follow after the scream. He hadn't heard a peep out of that mysterious girl since entering this cave.

He kept on walking though, further into the echoing abyss. As long as there was even the tiniest possibility that someone was being held here, Dean was going to entertain what Sam often labeled his hero complex.

He shone his torch at the walls around him, looking for any telltale symbols or markings. Perhaps some signs of struggle. On the wall to his right, the beam caught a clump of something discolored, hugging the wall in patches here and there. Dean frowned and walked up to it, reaching out with his hand and prodding it lightly. Something moist and squishy met his touch. Dean pulled away in disgust. "Moss, real evil."

Dean sighed and continued walking. He was getting deeper and deeper into the cave if the increasing depth of his footsteps' echoes were any indication. "Damsel in distress…" he called out softly, fast becoming impatient with this little trek into the Cave of Mysteries that refused to lift back its curtains and reveal any of those mysteries. "Evil soul-sucking killer posing as damsel in distress?"

No answer. It had been a long shot anyway. But, suddenly, Dean's ears pricked up with the sound of running footsteps, the noise cutting through the heavy blanket of silence that had enveloped him since entering. Startled, Dean whipped around and raised his gun, aiming it steadily.

From just beyond the stretch of path that his torch illuminated, a voice – a familiar voice – rang out. "Dean!"

Dean frowned and lowered his gun slightly. _Sam?_ He quickly stole a glance at his watch; he hadn't been gone long enough for Sam to send out the one-man search party. But, sure enough, emerging from the shadows and into the hazy yellow beam was Sam, skidding to a stop and staring at Dean with wide, confused eyes, his chest visibly rising and falling as he sucked in the stale, thin air.

Dean lowered his gun completely and tucked it into his waistband. He raised his shoulders in an incredulous shrug, watching Sam stare at him with that confused frown and with those lips that seemed to be struggling to form words. Dean purposely looked around at the cave walls. "Dude," he said, turning back to Sam. "This doesn't look like outside. I thought I told you to wait out there. Not run in here shouting my name crazily."

Sam finally caught his breath, the stale air in the cave having made it harder for him than it'd usually be. "You called me," he said.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "No I didn't."

Sam nodded, eyes still shining with remnants of panic, but they were quickly being overrode by confusion. "I heard you. And then I heard rocks collapsing."

Dean's eyes instantly slid towards the ceiling, slightly unsettled with anything that Sam said concerning his life. That itch on his head from that mysterious injury was still very real.

"Man, would you stop having visions of me all dead-like!" Dean said. "Geez."

Finally calming down, relief washing away the burst of adrenaline and fear that had hijacked his body upon hearing those rocks and hearing Dean shouting his name, Sam shook his head. "It wasn't a vision. I heard you like you heard that girl. It must've been the creature again."

Dean smirked. "So you got all lured in too, huh? Worried about me, Sammy?"

Sam scoffed, staring at Dean with a faint smile on his lips – one arising from incredulity more than anything else. "So you believe me now? That it's a trap?"

Dean's face scrunched up in mock thought before he wrapped an arm around Sam's shoulders. "Sammy, after long and careful consideration, I've come to the conclusion that," and here he paused for dramatic effect, making Sam roll his eyes and shift his weight impatiently, "It's a possibility." Dean grinned and moved away from Sam, shining his light absently back across the cave walls.

Sam watched him with a smirk twitching his lips. "Oh, really?"

Dean shrugged, scratching away some moss to peer behind it before pulling back and looking over at Sam. "I'm a genius like that."

Sam couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his lips. But it instantly died when Dean's torch began to flicker on and off. That dread Sam had been feeling since the dream began to wind up in his chest again.

Dean shook the torch and banged it a few times, but the flickering didn't stop, instead the light went out completely, bathing them in shadow while their eyes tried to adjust to the sudden dark.

"Well this isn't good," Dean's voice rose from somewhere in the shadows. But almost as suddenly, the torch turned itself back on, blinding Dean who'd had the torch faced towards him, about to check its small bulb. He moved it away in annoyance, blinking away the blue and black dots spinning in front of his eyes. When they cleared and he looked up, he found himself staring at a distorted, billowing figure floating in front of him. Dean jumped back, surprise getting the better of him as he backed into Sam with a start. The brothers froze, staring at the formless mass as it wavered in and out of existence. The only part of it that remained steady were its eyes – two round orbs that looked…sad. Caged and terrified. But mostly sad. Suddenly, from a slit that was obviously its mouth, it wailed. A loud, long, sad wail that reached painful heights, shaking loose small pebbles and erupting in the brothers' heads. They quickly covered their ears, faces scrunched up in pain.

The sound wasn't only penetrating their eardrums, it was penetrating their souls! It was a wail for everything that they'd lost, every person they couldn't save. It was a wail for Dean's lost childhood, Sam's lost future. For the day Sam opened his eyes to find Jessica staring down at him, for the day he turned his back on Stanford in search of a killer. It was for the day Dean watched Sam turn his back and leave for college, the day he rang his father and got no answer. It was for the day he felt the flames lick his back as he ran from their burning house, Sam swaddled in his arms.

And then it stopped. The brothers opened their eyes reluctantly and watched the thing. Weary of it. Dean's hand was resting on his gun, ready to draw it out at any sudden movement, even though he realized it'd probably be useless on this thing, whose body appeared transparent.

"GET OUT!" the thing screamed, causing the brothers to flinch and reach up to cover their ears again, but in the next second the thing was gone. Leaving them in a cold, damp cave that was again silent, save for some residue pebbles still falling from the cave's walls and ceiling.

The brothers stared at the empty spot where that creature had…floated…a second ago. Their ears still pounding, their chests still burning with all those memories its wail had dredged up. Both were fighting the startling feeling that its anguished song had struck – the foreign, strange urge to cry. Though neither would dare admit it.

"What the hell was that?" Dean finally said, in a voice laced high with exasperation.

Sam shook his head, eyes still focused on the memory of Jess enflamed on the ceiling. "I don't know." He looked over at Dean, mentally shaking the image. "But it wasn't the Aztec creature from that blood symbol. One, that thing wasn't corporeal. And two, it told us to _leave_, it doesn't want us here. That thing isn't what drew us in."

Dean groaned and kicked away one of the dislodged pebbles. "So, what? It _is _a two creature killers for the price of one deal? And one wants us in here, while the other doesn't want any houseguests? Jesus, now we're stuck in the middle of a roommate squabble."

Sam just shrugged. They stood in silence for a second, each lost in their own thoughts. Each looking around the cave absently. Sam suddenly shot Dean a sidelong glance, remembering Dean bumping into him, startled by the creature. Sam's lips and cheeks twitched as he tried to keep the humour from his voice. "Now aren't you glad I was here to hold your hand, and not waiting outside like you told me to?"

Dean shot his brother a withering glare. Sam just chuckled. But something caught his eye and he straightened up. He grabbed Dean's torch and walked further into the cave, shining the light on one of the cave walls. Dean frowned and followed, feeling naked without the light firmly in his possession.

"Say please next time," Dean muttered, shoving Sam's shoulder before he too noticed what Sam had found. Painted across the cave's wall sat a colourful array of chalk drawings. They were scratched and faded, easy to miss, but as Sam closely shone the light over each individual picture, Dean was able to see them clearly. They depicted what looked like that thing they'd just seen, as it watched different scenarios, in some its arm reaching out, in some just staring. The drawings also showed that symbol that had been found on the victims. It was drawn on the rocky cave over and over again.

"I get moss, you get paintings," Dean muttered, glancing from the drawings to Sam.

"What?" Sam asked absently.

"Nothing."

"They look old," Sam said, staring at them all intently.

Dean raised an eyebrow, struck by how ridiculous that had sounded. "…Yeah. That's why they call them ancient paintings."

"No," Sam rolled his eyes. "I mean there are no new ones. Why would this thing just stop documenting his life?"

Dean shrugged. "He purchased a video camera?"

Sam smiled. "Somehow I don't think that's the answer."

"Don't be so quick to knock the idea. Paris Hilton made filming yourself all the rage," Dean grinned, before pointing at the wall again. "Hey, where's all the blood?"

"It's a different symbol to that Aztec one. It doesn't require blood."

"No, I mean where's all the pretty pictures showing the sacrifices and slaughters. I don't see one entrail or ripped out heart."

Sam stared at the pictures thoughtfully. None of them looked violent. Or sacrificial, or ritualistic, or annual, or anything of the sort. In each image it was just that billowing creature standing besides a scene of people interacting, oblivious to that thing's presence.

"Help me!" a voice cried out, loud, close, scared.

Dean looked over at Sam wearily. "Round two," he said quietly, pulling out his gun and taking the light from Sam.

"It sounded like it came from around that corner." Sam motioned towards the bend in the cave, also keeping his voice low.

Dean nodded and steeped instinctively in front of Sam, leading the way cautiously, illuminating the path with the torch while expertly leveling his gun in front of him. Sam followed, stepping lightly, gun also drawn. Dean stopped when they reached the bend, leaning his back against the jagged, jutting rockface, inching forward until he could see that the path was clear. He then quickly turned the corner, gun outstretched and trigger finger locked and ready. Nothing sprang out at him, but a few feet away, just in reach of the torch's beam, lay a young woman, curled in on herself, back facing the brothers, hood covering her hair. Dean motioned for Sam to stay where he was, and he then cautiously approached the girl, a weary clump building in his stomach.

Sam watched Dean, gun hovering protectively. But as Dean crept closer, lowering the gun more and more, the torch's beam revealed more of the girl's outline. That figure, the bits of hair poking out from the hood of her sweatshirt, it all struck Sam with a deadly familiarity.

"Wait, Dean!" Sam yelled, stopping Dean short, who was crouched beside the figure and about to tap her shoulder.

Dean twisted around, startled by the urgency in Sam's voice. "What?" he asked.

"Get away from her!"

And sure enough, the figure chose that moment to spring up and yank the gun from Dean's hands, pulling back her hood to reveal the short, blonde hair. "Aw, baby, you spoiled the surprise," Meg drawled out, grinning at Sam and pointing the gun at Dean's chest as he sprung back, staring from his empty hands to his nabbed gun in shock.

Meg's eyes slid back towards Dean. "Too slow," she quipped.

Dean practically growled, the anger rising off him in a burst of energy that crackled the air around them. "Oh look, it's the psychobitch."

Meg ignored him, her attention sliding back towards Sam, her amused gaze breaking the trance that had enveloped him the second he had been forced to watch her grab the gun from Dean's hands and point it at his chest. He kept waiting to hear that deadly shot ring out. So Sam stood still, gun still drawn but too horrified by the sight of Dean caught in the crossfire to move or form any words.

"Hi, Sam," Meg chirped. "What a coincidence, bumping into each other like this again."

Sam swallowed his trepidation and let a scowl slide over his features. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure. But it really isn't."

Meg just smiled at that, her eyes lazily flickering back to Dean as he inched forward. "Uh uh," she reprimanded lightly. "I stole this from you fair and square." She held the gun tighter, her finger visibly tightening on the trigger.

Dean grit his teeth and backed up a few feet, reluctantly holding out his hands.

"That's a good boy. Now go stand up against the wall there, next to your brother."

Dean glared at her with an untamed anger that sparked from his eyes. But he reluctantly backed up, frustration clawing at his chest as he silently berated himself for falling into this trap. Now they were both in trouble.

Meg smiled at him and turned back to Sam. "And why don't you slide that gun on over. It's not nice to point guns at ladies."

"Yeah, lady," Dean scoffed.

Meg shot him an amused look before turning back to Sam who was hesitating. Meg sighed dramatically. "Now I know you don't want me to shoot your brother, Sam."

"Okay, okay," Sam said quickly, looking over at Dean. He slowly put his gun on the ground and slid it towards Meg, ignoring the glare Dean was aiming at him. What did Dean expect? Now wasn't the time for a showdown. They couldn't take the chance.

Meg bent down, first gun still trained at Dean, and scooped up the second weapon, tucking it into her waistband.

"Why is it that the ex's can never leave a guy alone?" Dean asked his brother, loud enough for Meg to hear. "And why always the anorexic ones?"

Meg mock frowned at this. "And, baby, why is it that the in-laws are always so stupid? You really shouldn't call a girl names. Especially if she's holding a loaded gun."

"Was this all another one of your traps, Meg?" Sam cut in. "The symbols, the victims, the whispers. How'd you pull it all off? You controlling something else now?"

Meg just shook her head. "What, now that I have you and," she looked over at Dean, "your little dog too," she said mockingly, "you think I'm just going to reveal everything. This isn't the movies, Sam."

Dean laughed, cutting Meg off and earning a startled look from Sam. That brother of his sure didn't make it easy on himself.

"Something funny?" Meg asked, an annoyed flicker passing through her eyes.

"Dad's getting close," Dean told Sam, before turning to Meg with a satisfied grin. "Isn't that right, Meg? It's why you went to all this trouble to find us, to build up this trail, to get us here and set us up, all just to redo the same old trick. Instead of just waiting for us to meet up with dad again somewhere along the line, you're using us as bait. Again. It's careless. Your hand is revealed. So why do it?" Dean turned back to Sam, blatantly ignoring Meg. "Dad's getting close. He's got them scared. Whoever this psychobitch is working for aint too happy that she screwed up her chance the first time round." Dean looked Meg directly in the eye when he said this next bit. "She's getting sloppy."

Meg and Dean locked eyes, staring each other down in a silent battle of wills. Sam watched with a small smile, applauding his brother for finally erasing that perpetual grin from Meg's face.

Meg looked away first. She visibly clenched her jaw before letting that smile slide back onto her face. Though it wasn't nearly as large, or carefree, as it had been a few minutes ago. "Call daddy dearest," she commanded Sam. "And tell him to get here. Tell him you'll both die – long, slow deaths – if he doesn't. Tell him anything, I don't care. Just get him here, Sam."

"Yeah, like he's going to do that," Dean scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"I don't have a phone," Sam shrugged, his face set in an expression of mock apology and innocence.

Meg sighed in growing frustration. "Use Dean's."

"He doesn't have one, either," Sam said. Dean shrugged, mimicking Sam's innocent expression, a small smile playing on his lips.

Meg laughed quietly, looking down at her feet and breathing in deeply. She then sauntered up to Sam, her arm outstretched, the gun pointing at Dean steadily, leaving no doubt in either of their minds that she would pull the trigger the instant she felt one of them was about to try something.

She straddled up to Sam, her body pressing against his, her eyes sliding up to lock with his ones, and her hand traveling down his pants and into his front pocket. He cringed, resisting the urge to pull away. She smiled and tugged out his cell phone. "I found it," she said, pulling back and shoving the phone at Sam's chest. He caught it with a glare – helplessness beginning to battle with the dread in his chest.

Meg backed up a few feet and aimed the gun at Sam. Dean instantly tensed, rage boiling in his chest as his protective instincts took over and his muscles wound up, ready to act the second the situation called for it.

"Call him," Meg said quietly.

Sam hesitated, clutching his phone and staring at Meg defiantly, his mouth twitching with anger.

Meg sighed loudly, impatient, fed up, the smile gone from her lips, done with these games. She swung the gun purposely towards Dean's head. "Call, or I'll kill your brother." And she meant it.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading and reviewing up until now, it's given me the motivation to write instead of study ;)  



	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **So sorry for the long delay! I used last weekend to write that oneshot - Foresight - instead. And then this site wouldn't let me load my chapter - I had to wait a day. But this chapter is extra long to make up for it! And so sorry I haven't had a chance to reply to everyone who reviewed last chapter - you guys mean the world!

IMPORTANT: I'm changing my rating to M - due to swearing and violence. So please make sure to change your settings from 'K-T' to 'All' to see future updates.

**Chapter 4**

Sam watched Meg's fingers clutch the gun, aimed at Dean's head. A perfect aim, a perfect arc between the barrel and its target. The muscles in her arm were taut, her fingers steady.

"Call, or I'll kill your brother." Her eyes bore into Sam's. Calm, determined.

Dean backed up a step, holding out his hands reluctantly, his frustration clear.

Sam watched as Meg's eyes flickered towards Dean and her finger tightened on the trigger. "Okay!" Sam shouted, quickly jumping in front of his brother, holding out his hands in a gesture of peace. Or defeat. Or to ward off this psycho blonde. Whatever, he didn't care; he just wanted to stop her from shooting Dean.

Meg's finger visibly relaxed and Sam stepped back, his eyes flickering towards Dean. "Okay," he repeated, flipping open his phone.

Dean turned to look at Sam in shock. "Sam," he said firmly. A command. "Sam," he repeated when Sam ignored him and started to dial. The anger was evident in his voice, the meaning clear: _Don't you dare draw Dad into this. Listen to you big brother, dammit. _

It was the last thing Sam wanted to do, to trap his dad again. But he didn't really have a choice, did he? Didn't Dean see the gun pointed at his own head?

"Sam!" Dean moved forward to wrestle the phone from Sam's hand.

Rocks abruptly exploded just above their heads. Bits of pebbles sprayed their faces and a blast rang out that left their ears ringing. They ducked and sprang back. Dean gaped at the bullet hole wedged in the rock face between himself and Sam. He turned to Meg, who stood with the smoking gun still drawn, a triumphant shine in her eyes.

"Oh, I am killing you _so _badly," he growled. He turned back to Sam and held out his hand. "Give me the phone."

Meg laughed incredulously, looking from the gun in her hand to the hole left by the bullet that had just missed Dean. "Oh, you really are a special kind of stupid, aren't you?"

Sam stared at his brother - his expression more or less mirroring Meg's incredulity. Frowning at his urge to repeat Meg's question, Sam turned his back on her and quietly addressed his brother. "Uh, Dean, she just shot at us."

"She shot at the wall, Sammy. She's bluffing. She needs us."

"You boys aren't talking behind my back, now are you?"

Dean looked at her and smiled, matching her calm, untroubled expression with his own. "You shot the wall. You're bluffing. You need us."

The stared each other down for a second, before Meg licked her lips and shook her head. "Is that right?" She strode up to him, gun outstretched, a spark in her eyes.

Dean glanced down, watching her feet as they drew her closer. The instant she stepped within range, Dean sprung forward and knocked her arm to the side, elbowing her in the face. Meg gasped and the gun flew out of her hand.

"Grab it!" Dean yelled to Sam, pushing Meg away. Meg stumbled backwards, her arms swinging out as she fell backwards, landing on the cave ground with a small grunt. Instantly recovering, she closed her eyes and chanted something under her breath. Her short hair rustled in the breeze that appeared with her words.

Sam dove for the gun, scooping it up only to have Dean snatch it out of his hands. "Hey!" Sam wanted to interject, but was stopped short when a dark shadow fell over them. Sam's head snapped up and he gasped, stumbling backwards.

"Dean," he whispered, nodding his head at the being that had emerged from around the cave's corner.

Dean recoiled, a disgusted sound escaping his throat. "What the freak is that…freak?"

In front of them stood what looked like a decaying body. A dead and rotting version of someone who looked to have been a bit older than Dean. He…it…was large and broad shouldered, looming over even Sam in height. But its chest didn't rise or fall with breath, its face didn't turn at Dean's insult. It was staring ahead, blank and slack jawed. From it arose the distinct small of…death. A dug-up grave. Dr Ellicott's rotting bones.

But its eyes…They moved. They roamed the cave, restless, agitated…Sad. Black, misty eyes.

"Oh wow," Sam whispered. "It's that thing we saw in the cave. She has it trapped in a…a corpse." He turned to Dean, face twisted with revulsion.

Dean glanced at Sam, noting the shock etched into his face. He was amazed that his brother could still be shocked by the things they encountered on this job. This hunt. This life. Dean, all he cared about was that the body was dead. He had no moral obligation to withhold from shooting up its ass. Dean lifted the gun and aimed.

"Tie up Rambo, there," Meg commanded. She was back on her feet, watching the exchange – Sam's shock and Dean's heroics. Her twitching lips and arched eyebrow betrayed her amusement.

A shot rang out. The bullet struck its target, this walking corpse, with a small _schlip_. The corpse jerked backwards – though only slightly, and it quickly righted itself, lunging at Dean and knocking the gun from his hands.

"Hey!" Dean exclaimed, growling in disgust as it grabbed his forearms with its fleshy, dead hands and tried to wring them behind Dean's back.

Sam rushed into to the struggle, grabbing the thing's tattered shirt and trying to pull him away from Dean. The thing glanced back at Sam before turning and landing a strong, quick, punch to his face. Sam flew backwards, landing on the floor in a stunned heap, his phone shooting out of his hand and skidding across the ground. Meg stopped it with her foot.

A few minutes later, the thing tossed a struggling, swearing Dean to the ground. It then shoved Sam down next to his brother. Dean's arms were tied tightly behind his back.

Taking a breath from the threats and curses he was shouting at his captors, Dean turned his head to look over at Sam. "How'd we manage to get jumped by Frankenstein and Creepy-Bo-Peep here?"

Sam, who was rubbing his sore jaw – it was already beginning to swell from the hit – shot Dean a dry look. "We followed a scream into a cave."

Dean frowned. "Snarky," he muttered, turning back around.

Meg strolled up to Sam, fondling his phone in her hands. She crouched in font of him and battered her eyelashes, a satisfied smile on her face. She lifted up his hand and pressed the phone into it. "You've both had your fun, now be a good boy and call Papa Winchester."

The pain pulsating from his jaw ignited his anger. "Screw you," Sam spat. God, he was sick of being held captive by psychos.

"In front of your brother?" Meg teased.

Dean rolled his eyes.

Meg smiled at Sam's glaring face and backed away, crawling over to Dean, eyes locked with Sam's the whole time.

"Whoa, hey, don't draw me into your lover's spat." Watching her disappear behind his back, Dean automatically tensed. His breath froze in his throat as he felt her fingers stroke his hand as it lay there tied up and useless. She then wrapped them around his index finger.

Dean's eyes widened. "Don't you fucking dare!"

His threat ended on a suppressed scream as a snap rang out. Sharp and loud. Dean clenched his teeth and shut his eyes. "Oh you bitch," he wheezed, the words struggling to escape his clamped jaw. His face reddening as the pain snaked up his broken finger and into his body.

Meg slid back over to Sam, who was staring at his brother in shock.

"Call," Meg repeated.

Sam almost snarled, his fury expanding into his head and creating a fog between him and Meg so that all he could see was red. But when Sam glanced over at his brother, the fog disappeared and a dull ache took its place. A distressing resignation. Dean was struggling to get his breathing back to normal, to swallow the pain. But when he finally glanced over, Sam could see it riddled in his eyes.

"Fine," Sam whispered.

Dean let his head fall back against the cave wall, sighing. In relief, in annoyance, in frustration, Sam couldn't tell.

Sam snapped the phone open and dialed the number he knew by heart, listened to that voicemail he could recite in his sleep, and told their dad that they needed him, that Meg was here, that they were being used as bait. Again. Meg didn't seem to care that he was divulging the whole 'you're the mouse and we're the cheese' thing. She didn't seem to care about anything other than getting him here and finishing what she'd started.

Sam hung up. Dean nodded slightly. His thanks. It was cased in a strange combination of annoyance and defeat, but it was there.

Meg grinned, relief shining from her eyes for a second before she turned to the silent, still corpse. She gestured at Sam. "Tie him up too."

Sam didn't struggle – he couldn't see a way out of this. Not yet. So he'd preserve his strength. For now he just glared at Meg as she stood there. Watching him.

Sam felt the rope pinch his skin, the rough material scraping his wrists with every attempt to struggle against them. They rubbed against his wrists the same way the worry did. The worry caused by the silent, unmoving form that his brother's struggles had died into.

He stole a glance over at Dean. Quickly, fervently. He didn't want Meg to see his concern. To act on it. Dean's head was still resting against the cave and his face had paled, his eyes glazed over. But from beyond the dull glaze, Sam could see his mind churning, concentrating. Onto something. Sam discreetly followed his gaze. It was resting on the giant, stoic corpse.

A slight frown furrowed Sam's brow. What was Dean onto? But he quickly erased it from his face, replacing it with an emotionless glare, realizing that Meg was still watching him with that smile dancing on her lips.

"Now this isn't any fun. Where's all the threats. The questions? Don't you want to ask me why I'm doing this? Who I'm working for? What's in it for me?" She smiled, still watching Sam. "How I'm controlling him?" She gestured over to the corpse, her smile widening. Sam shut his eyes momentarily and cursed under his breath, realizing that Meg had been following his gaze just as he had been Dean's. He hoped he hadn't just ruined whatever Dean was concocting.

Dean blinked back the fog, and let a smirk sparkle in its place. His eyes flickered over to Meg's. The chance to respond to her questions was too good to pass up. Broken finger or no broken finger. "Because you're a bitch, you work for a bigger bitch, and you get off on tying us up."

Meg's eyes slid towards Dean, annoyance flickering through them, but she didn't respond. Instead, she turned back to Sam and sauntered up to him, straddling him.

He locked eyes with her in defiance. Her face was so close that he could feel her breath; he resisted his urge to turn away.

"Please," Dean scoffed. "The ropes, the straddling. It's been done. Get some new material."

Meg reached behind her and from her waistband withdrew a giant carving knife.

Dean's eyes widened and his heart sped up. Okay, that was new. "Geez, lady, overcompensating much?" he said, trying to ignore how rapidly his heart was beating. He did not like that bitch sitting on top of his brother with that knife.

A growl escaped Dean's throat as he watched Meg place the blade almost lovingly against Sam's cheek. Sam's body recoiled against the foreign feel of the blade. Of the cold metal. She ran it lightly down his cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, just enough so that it hissed in the quiet cave as it scraped against his cheek.

"You know," she said, tilting her head in a mock gesture of thoughtfulness. "As long as one of you are still alive, he'll come." She placed the knife under Sam's chin, the point of the blade resting against his jugular. She smiled as he gulped, a sheet of sweat erupting on his forehead. "As long as one of you are alive, it can still be one big, bloody reunion." She pressed the knife harder, twisting it around in her hand. Sam gasped as he felt it dig into his flesh, just short of breaking through. "All he needs is one."

"Hey!" Dean pulled harder at his ropes. Heart speeding up in panic. Eyes clouding over in anger. Not caring that the pain in his finger was sparking with every jolt.

Sam couldn't see Dean working to free himself. Couldn't see the taunt in Meg's eyes. He could only see the hand in front of him. That hand holding the blade. The blade that was glinting in the dull light. He couldn't feel the beads of sweat on his forehead; couldn't feel Meg's weight on top of him. Could only feel the sharp point pressed into his throat.

"You don't have to do this, Meg," Sam gulped, speaking quickly, tearing his eyes from the knife to her face.

Meg laughed at him. "Really? I don't? Should I repent instead? Give up my big bad ways? Don a catholic girl's uniform and bake you cookies? Come on, Sam, you more than anyone should know that we do what we do not because we have to." She watched the knife as she traced it over his skin. "You do what you do because of revenge, loyalty, loneliness. I do it because it's fun." Her eyes locked with Sam's and he saw swimming in there a dedication and certainty that scared him. She may find this kinky rope and torture thing fun, but she was doing it for some other reason. Something to do with their mom. And Jess.

"And maybe because you're a whack job," Dean interrupted, growing more unsettled as Meg grew more serious.

Meg pursed her lips and abruptly retracted the knife, tossing it into a corner. "But I like you, Sam." She shrugged. "If things were different, we might have worked out well together." She smoothed down Sam's hair, tucking a lock of it behind his ears as he visibly relaxed, the tension freed by the blade's retreat. "I wont kill you. Yet. First, I'll do you one last favour."

Meg scooted closer to Sam and leaned forward, whispering into his ear. "I'm going to kill your brother for you."

Sam's breath froze in his lungs and his head whipped towards Dean, eyes wide. Meg grinned and hopped off Sam, gesturing the corpse forward, towards Dean.

Dean looked from Sam's panicked face to Meg's smug one, to the corpse looming closer. He sighed. "Ah, fuck."

The corpse grabbed Dean by the lapels of his shirt and pulled him up, dragging him across the cave. "Hey!" Dean shouted, more annoyed than anything else. "Get your dead hands off me! Or I swear I'll kill you…again…Dammit, you know what I mean!"

"Dean!" Sam leant his back against the wall and used it to lever himself to his feet. "Where are you taking him, Meg?" he demanded, watching as Dean was dragged around a corner, hearing his brother's angry curses grow muffled and distant.

Meg mumbled something under her breath, an incantation. A black mist shot out from around the cave's corner and lunged at Sam, furling itself around his feet and binding them close, causing Sam to fall back down with a grunt.

Meg shot Sam a grin. "Don't worry, baby, your turn will come." Then she turned and followed after Dean.

* * *

Dean growled and twisted, feeling his shirt lift and bunch around his neck, but that thing's grip wouldn't loosen. 

He was suddenly shoved, his legs scrambling to keep up with his torso as it flew forward. He righted himself, inches before his face collided with the rocky wall, and whipped around. "Oh I am so cremating your ass," he snarled. The thing didn't answer. Didn't react at all, in fact.

Dean sighed and glanced around. He was in some sort of crook that nature had carved into this cave. _Mother Nature's own Abu Ghraib, great._

Dean looked back at the corpse. It was staring blankly ahead. Maybe he can't react without orders, Dean thought. Dean inched forward, trying to make as little noise as possible. But the thing's head slowly turned towards Dean – an owl watching its prey – and stepped to the side, blocking off Dean's escape.

A half sigh, half growl escaped Dean's throat and he stopped walking. "Dude, give a guy a break."

No answer.

"Not feeling very chatty today, huh?"

Still no answer.

Dean raised an eyebrow. "Can you speak, or do you just stand there, waiting for orders? You don't look like a Royal Guard."

Dean sighed again and leant against the cool wall. The small area was cold, moist, dark. There was only one way out – and Frankenstein there was blocking it. "What does it pay these days to be the muscle?"

"More than you can afford," Meg's voice answered a second before she strolled into the room.

Dean instantly stood up straight, face hardening. "Yeah, you're right, I wouldn't sell my soul."

Meg chuckled. Dean noted how the corpse's black, misty eyes wavered, twisting and tumbling crazily now that Meg had entered the room. The ghost, or whatever was trapped inside that body, was growing agitated, desperate. It didn't like being trapped and used any more that Dean did.

Now, the question that remained: how was Meg controlling it? Dean quickly scoured her body, but didn't see any pendant or obvious marker of Dark Magic.

Meg ran her hand over the thing's arm. Its black eyes sparked with anger. "I still haven't tried out all the nifty things I can do with my new toy. Wanna play?"

"No."

"Too bad." Meg walked up to him and pressed her hand against his cheek. Dean frowned at how random that gesture was, before he felt his cheek begin to sizzle and he smelt his own flesh burning. "Belief," she whispered into his ear. "Is its specialty."

Dean cringed, the world falling away, turning black, spinning in circles. He gasped as the pain in his cheek reached into his mind and accessed his thoughts – memories flashing before his eyes, like the fluttering pages of a book falling from its shelf.

Dean cried out and in a burst of adrenaline, snapped the rope from his arms. Startled, it took Dean a second to comprehend that his arms were freed. He sprung up, pushing Meg aside and running to the entrance, ducking past the corpse and back to Sam. But Sam was gone. Bloodied ropes left in his place.

"Dean," Sam's voice rang out from close behind. Dean whipped around only to find Sam with Meg's knife in his hands. He plunged it into Dean's shoulder.

The blade tore through Dean's clothes and skin, slicing into his muscles with such ease that Dean felt betrayed by his body. Betrayed by the blood that was scrambling to escape, by the fire that his torn muscles and skin spat at him, by his own flesh and blood.

Dean gasped, his eyes springing open, his head jerking back. He was back in that rock crevice. His arms still bound. Meg was still at his side, her hand pressed against his burning cheek. Only now, he was on the floor, having slumped there. And his shoulder was pulsating with sharp, searing, pangs. Confused and distressed, Dean looked down and saw the tear in his shirt, the dark circle of blood soaking the cloth, sticking it to his skin.

Meg scooted around Dean and yanked the jagged tear open wider, inspecting the clean, thin, triangular cut. Blood still welled at its surface, waiting to escape, but the flow was already beginning to ebb. "Hmm," she mused. "That should've cut clean through. Didn't really believe that one, huh? I guess it was a long shot."

Dean squinted, trying to concentrate through the fire in his arm and the dull throb from his finger. Only…it wasn't the pain creating the black haze in front of his eyes. There was an actual black fog floating through the cave! He turned his head, following it. It was emanating from the corpse – from the thing inside it, and traveling through the room, ending at Meg's hand, the one she'd had pressed against his cheek.

"…What?" Sam wasn't in the room. Sam was never in the room. He arched an eyebrow at Meg, mouth twisting with disgust. "Demon marijuana? You serious?"

"Like a hot poker." She pressed her hand back against his cheek. He tried to jerk away but her hand remained firm, and in his confusion Dean didn't resist the dizziness that spun the world away from him.

* * *

The fog slowly cleared from Dean's head, replaced by a dull ache. He jerked awake to find himself staring at the three human freaks – the Benders. He could smell their rancid breath, see their unkempt, unwashed faces as they leered at him. Wait, what was that? Fun to hunt? 

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me, this is what this is about? You yahoos hunt people?" Jesus, he had to get Sam out of here. The leader of this crazy pack – the father – rambled on a bit about the hunt and their lives, which, of course, revolved around that hunt. Until Dean's disgust forced him to spit a few too many patronizing remarks their way. Then he found himself staring into the tip of a hot poker.

The gap-toothed man held it above the knife wound in his shoulder. The heat from the poker licking his exposed flesh, his open gash. Wait, Dean frowned, confusion cutting through his panic. Where the hell had that cut come from?

The old man flickered. Dean blinked. He swore he just saw blonde hair where his gray had been, a satisfied smirk where his grin now sat.

"…what?" But Dean didn't have time to finish the thought. The old man plunged the scalding poker into his wound, onto his exposed flesh, his raw nerves. The heat shot into the fresh opening and sprang onto his sliced muscles, sizzling into him. Dean screamed, writhing his shoulder, trying to jerk the poker away, a rubbery smell assaulting his senses.

And then there was black.

Sam's face was covered in sweat – he was exhausted, the efforts to free himself from the rope and this black fog wrapping itself around his legs proving too much.

"Smokey substance, one; Sam, zero," he muttered to himself, annoyed. He let his body relax, leaning his head against the wall.

But he jerked, the annoyance disappearing the instant he heard a scream from somewhere deep in the cave.

Sam's breath hitched in throat and the sweat froze on his face.

_Dean…_

A thousand images flashed through Sam's head. A thousand ways to make Dean scream like that. "No…Meg!" he shouted, trying to distract her, to stop her. He renewed his struggle.

* * *

Dean was back in the cave. Back with Meg. Back with the black mist. His shoulder sizzled and burnt. He couldn't run from the pain, couldn't clench his fists against it because of his broken finger. So he just stared at Meg. At her smirking, satisfied face. 

She moved over to his shoulder and poked it. A scream got caught in Dean's throat, tangled with a growl.

"I think I'm getting the hang of my new toy," she said, gesturing over to the corpse. "Memories work better. You believe the pain more."

What the hell was going on? Dean glared at her through the sweat that had erupted on his face, that slid into his eyelashes. "Want to fill me in on the rules, sweetheart?" His sarcasm easily ate through his confusion. Through the fog that was making it difficult to concentrate, to connect what was happening to some clear – if twisted – line of logic.

Meg grinned. "No."

She pressed her hand back against Dean's cheek, and that burning and dizziness engulfed him once more.

He was being jostled. Dragged. He forced his eyes open and found himself staring at a stream of red and brown. He blinked. Trying to clear his vision. He was being dragged across a dirt ground!

He twisted his head and found that his feet were bound and a large Wendigo held the rope that was attached. He groaned, remembering the snapping twigs behind him and the blow across his head.

His back scraped over some jutting rocks and he gasped as the jolt knocked his burnt shoulder. Burnt shoulder? He didn't have time to register what that meant, because in the next second the Wendigo had stopped, hearing his gasp, and was grabbing him by his shirt, slamming him up against a tree. It reared back his head and was about to rip Dean's jugular from him when Sam's shout cut through the Woods.

"No…Meg!"

The fear in his brother's voice forced Dean to act, he lifted his legs and kicked away the Wendigo.

But before he could escape, follow Sam's voice, Dean dropped to the ground, clutching his face as his cheek burned. And suddenly he was losing. Losing the hunt. Losing the battle. Losing his family. He was being drawn down into the lake by the young boy's ghost. His lungs were expanding, convulsing, ready to explode. And Sam wasn't there to help him, Sam was still at college. Sam hadn't come back. And he was being struck across the face by the shape shifter. It looked like him, it moved like him. Dean had stepped to the right when he should have stepped left, made one stupid, careless mistake and could only watch as a fist – his fist! – flew towards his face, struck him on the mouth, split open his lips. A knee struck him in the stomach and Dean doubled-over, his breath stolen from him. Another hit and he was on the ground, shielding his head as that thing – that thing with his face – kicked him. Again and Again. Dean curled up against the pain – against the hunt, the loss, the confusion – only to expose himself to a finishing blow that connected with his ribs with a deafening crack that reverberated into his entire body, into his thoughts, into his consciousness.

And then he was sitting in a motel room, his Dad and Sam staring at him.

"Dean, what's wrong?" Sam asked, watching Dean closely.

Dean shook his head, trying to clear the fog. The black fog. He groaned at the movement, clutching his ribs as sweat broke out on his brow, dripped down his face. He tried to wipe it away but his fingers came back red.

"Dean?" his dad asked. But their voices were getting stuck in the thick haze circling Dean. He looked down. He was sitting at a table. Making protection charms. Against the daeva, against Meg, against whatever demon she was working for. The one that'd killed his mom.

"Dean, we don't have much time. Are you almost done?"

Who asked him that? Sam? His dad? Couldn't they see that he was hurt? That he could barely breathe? Didn't they see the blood dripping from his head, splattering onto the table?

But then a whistling, inhuman howl surrounded them. Dean's head snapped up. The Daevas! They were here! He'd only finished two protection charms! Quickly springing up, Dean shoved one at Sam, one into his father's hands. A second later he was torn from the room and into the next by a force like a gale. He cried out as his back hit the floor, jarring his ribs. He sucked in air to stop from screaming as invisible claws tore into him, shredding his shirt, ripping into his skin, splattering blood onto the floor. He tried to fend them off, but they were too quick, too predatory. He curled himself into a ball, shielding his face. He couldn't tell what was being torn into, what was hurting where. The pain that racked his body had merged into a single, ringing, burning blanket. And it was smothering him. And all he could hear beyond it was the sound of claws catching in his flesh and tearing across it, ripping back his skin as easily as opening stitches.

"Dean!" Sam called out his name.

Through a slit in his arms – his shield –Dean saw Sam rush into the mix. "No," Dean tried to call out, but his words were muffled by his forearms. He watched as Sam threw the charm at the Daevas, at Dean, only to have one of them slice Sam across the face, in the same place where his fading scars rested.

Dean's head jerked up when he heard Sam cry out.

The Daevas suddenly retreated and, judging from their shadows, hovered around Sam instead. "Sam!" Dean cried out, wanting to know if he was okay. But then his vision blurred, flickering in and out, torn between the motel room and a dark, rocky cave. The motel came back into focus as a new cut materialized on Sam's arm. Sam cried out and the motel again merged into the cave. And Dean heard Sam cry out not from inside the motel room, but from somewhere in this cave.

And then he got it. Dean forced his bloodied, battered body to sit up. He then slowly turned his back on the scene of Sam and the Daevas, his body absorbing every movement like he was being hit with a jackhammer. "Meg!" Dean yelled, using his last bit of strength. A shadow sprang up over him, indicating a daeva was diving towards him, but he just ignored it. The shadow passed over him, harmless. An illusion.

The motel disappeared, Sam's yells stopped, Meg recoiled her hand from his cheek with a hiss as Dean's mind kicked her out. "Game Over," Dean mumbled through the blood dripping from his lips, trough the coppery taste in his mouth and the blood dripping into his eyes from the cuts and gashes now marring his face.

"Believe," Dean muttered. He was finding it difficult to breathe, to concentrate. "The inscription. That thing you're controlling, the paintings…" Dean laughed suddenly, not caring that it shot spikes up his chest and that it ended in a coughing fit, more blood running from his mouth, joining the cascade that was splattering onto his torn shirt. "So there are demons out there who take the clichés seriously, huh? 'Just believe'? Just believe and it comes true. That's why three of those victims had no marks on them. You killed them in their minds. Made them believe something that wasn't real. Killed them with fear, grief. Killed those other two like you tried to with me. Made them believe something violent was happening."

Meg looked pissed off, but she clapped anyway. "Well done, you're not as dumb as you look."

"You're the only dumb one in this room, Sweetheart," Dean corrected, smirking. "You tried to use my mind to hurt Sam. Big mistake."

Meg smiled tightly, before hopping on Dean, straddling him, leaning her weight into him and shoving his back against the wall, jolting his cracked ribs. Dean gasped, shutting his eyes against the pain flowing up from his ribs like an angry tide.

"Deany baby, a girl always has more tricks up her sleeve." She leant casually on Dean's shoulders, her hand resting against his burnt shoulder. Dean grunted, clenching his jaw.

"Really not into this BDSM thing, darlin'."

Meg ignored him, pressing her hand back against his cheek. Dean jerked away, but she held on firmly. And the world was gone again, faded into black.

* * *

Let me know your thoughts! I hope you arent confused as hell, lol. If so, sorry! 


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **Thank you so much to those of you who review! My confidence is brittle, and you guys make all the difference :)

Warnings: Violence, torture, swearing...the usual.

A big thanx to amystar for an amazing beta job.

**Chapter 5:**

Dean grappled with the possessed pilot, trying to keep him still while Sam completed the exorcism. "Come on, Sam! I don't know how much longer I can hold him!"

And then the pilot disappeared. Just for a second, just a flicker. But he'd gone. Replaced by a cave. It could have been his vision jumping with the turbulence. But…

Dean's eyes widened as memories began to flood his mind, to untangle themselves from the black fog. Black fog…

"Whoa, wait a second." Dean released his grip on the pilot's arms and turned to Sam. "This has already happened."

"Dean! What are you doing?" Sam yelled, diving over the pilot's thrashing body as he tried to get up, wrestling him back to the floor.

"No, there's something…" Dean's frown deepened and he looked around. At the plane, those curtains, that discarded water bottle filled with holy water.

"Dean!" Sam yelled again, his voice shaking with every jolt from the struggling pilot. "Can we maybe figure out your déjà vu later?"

"You take care of this one." Dean hopped up and ripped back the curtain dividing the small area from the rest of the plane. His eyes carefully traveled over each passenger, looking for familiar blonde hair.

"What! Dean, I know you're scared of flying, but this is _not _the time to pull a crazy."

Dean let the curtain fall back and turned to his brother, but before he had a chance to explain, the plane abruptly tilted, throwing Dean across the aisle, slamming him into a corner. The lights blinked out and screams erupted from the passengers. Baggage rained down around Dean, hitting the floor and breaking open, spilling out clothes and books, laptops and food. Anything not bolted to the floor cascaded down the aisles, upended, plummeting along with the plane.

Dean's fingers clutched at the wall. His heart beat rapidly, and all he could see was flashes. Of dark and then people screaming, of dark and then baggage flying, of dark and then his brother scrambling across the floor, trying to find the journal.

_Sam. _The name broke through his panic. _Help him find the journal_, Dean commanded. But his limbs wouldn't respond. They remained frozen, clutching the wall, preparing for impact.

And then another name broke through the haze. _Meg. _And Dean remembered. Dean forced his eyes shut, forced his ears to block out the screams, the thuds, the panic. _It's already happened. It's not real. I'm not plummeting to my death. On a plane 15,000 feet in the air. On one that's about to crash. Where I'll be identified by my teeth… Not happening, you hear me, brain? Goddamn it, you better hear me. _

And then there was silence. A deep, abrupt silence.

_Heaven has harps and shit, right? So, I'm not dead. _Dean slowly opened one eye, and then the other, needing both to absorb the sight before him. The plane had frozen. Along with everyone in it. People were strapped to their seats, backs rigid, hands clutching the armrests. Not moving, not breathing. There were air masks frozen in mid-dangle. Baggage stuck in mid-tumble. All frozen.

Dean's muscles began to relax, his fingers inching away from the wall. This scene in front of him was some weird shit, but it beat the plummeting version. Dean absently smoothed his hair and pulled at his shirt, untangling it. "Meg, I am going to kick your scrawny ass," he muttered.

A noise from inbetween the aisles caught his attention. It was a small noise. Only a rustle of fabric, an intake of breath. But in this frozen scene it rang out like an explosion.

Dean quieted his breath and waited. A demon, Meg… by this stage he wouldn't be surprised if Jack Torrance popped up. But from the aisle, looking around with a gaping mouth, their dad's journal sitting forgotten in his hand, stood Sam.

Dean relaxed and pulled himself up from where he'd been thrown. He grabbed the back of a chair for support.

Sam eyes were wide with disbelief. "What happened?"

Dean shrugged, yanking down's the window's shutter. "Plane froze."

"Yeah, I can see that. But what happened to make it freeze? Do you think the demon had something to do with this?"

"What? No! Dude, that thing wasn't real."

Sam frowned, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "It wasn't?"

Dean shrugged, poking a frozen passenger in the head. No reaction. A mannequin. "Okay, yeah, I mean it was real. Once. But not that one you were just fighting."

"What was I fighting, then?" Sam asked, snatching away Dean's finger.

Dean threw his hands up in the air. "I don't know! A…memory. A figment thingy that she's using against me."

"She?"

"Yes, she. Man, are you going to respond to everything I say with a question?"

"Depends, are you going to start making sense?"

"I can't make sense! I don't know what's going on. Meg. God, I'm going to kill her. She's…possessing some demon thing – No, Sam, not the one from the plane – and using its powers to…get into my mind and make me think things are real that aren't real. And then they become real. Until I remember they aren't real." Dean glanced over Sam, appraising him. "I don't even know if _you're_ real!"

Sam scratched his head, watching Dean carefully. "I'm…a Ken doll?"

Dean sighed and hung his head. "You're an idiot doll. No, not that kind of fake, doofus. You could just be…a memory version of you. _My_ memory's version of you! I don't really know how this all works."

"You'd never guess."

Dean punched Sam in the arm. "Hey, just because you're a part of my brain doesn't mean you can mouth off."

"Dean," Sam sighed, placing his hands on Dean's shoulders, forcing Dean to look at him. "You've gone insane."

Dean frowned, temporarily taken aback. "What the hell kind of brotherly reassurance is that?"

A flicker of a smile crossed Sam's face. "What I mean is, the demon on this plane must have been more powerful than we originally thought. The power to freeze time. To make you…babble."

"Babble? I don't babble. I'm trying to make you get it. Always were slow on the uptake, Sammy. At least my memory got that part right."

"Stop calling me a memory, Dean."

Dean leaned in closer. "Memory-boy." He smirked and moved back, comforted by the banter. It was something normal. Something he could rely on when the rest of the world was going insane. Or, you know, freezing.

Sam sighed and ran his hands through his hair in frustration, leaving a few stray strands sticking up near the back. "You're impossible."

"Dude, look around. None of this should be possible. But it is! And anyway, I can prove you're not _Sam,_ Sam."

"Oh yeah? How, Dean Dean?"

Dean ignored the dig, leaning casually against a plane chair and folding his arms, squinting at Sam like he was about to administer a pop quiz. "How did we end up killing this plane demon?"

"We haven't yet! The damn plane froze!"

"Ah ha! But we have! Okay, and do you remember the bug curse thing? The hookman? That chick that was totally into you that you took a skewering for? Eh?"

Sam stared at him blankly.

Dean pressed his hand against Sam's head. "Think, Sammy."

Sam slapped his hand away, annoyed. "I _am_ thinking."

"And?"

"And…" Sam spread out his hands. "I still don't know what you're talking about."

Dean half smiled at this. He couldn't conjure up a triumphant one. Not when his triumph meant the guy in front of him was only a memory. That Sam was still tied up in a cave somewhere. That _he _was still tied up in a cave somewhere.

"I need to sit down," Dean sighed.

He turned to find the plane chair behind him occupied. He clicked his fingers.

"Now what are you doing?" Sam sighed.

"Trying to get my mind to…zap this chair free." He clicked his fingers again. "Why isn't my brain working? – Shut up," he said to Sam before his brother could respond sarcastically.

A smirk overpowered Sam's incredulous expression. "Try to cross your arms and blink."

Dean rolled his eyes and plunked onto an empty chair a few seats down instead. He closed his eyes and let himself sink back. A vague pounding was beginning to form behind his eyes and his body was tingling. He couldn't figure out why.

He heard Sam sit in the chair across from him. Dean opened one eye and looked over. Sam had his hands clasped and looked lost in thought. "Start from the beginning," he finally said.

"So you believe me?"

"No. I'm…doing the benefit of the doubt thing. What's this all about?"

Dean shrugged a little, tired. "I don't know. We're trapped in a cave. Bitcherella tricked us. _Again. _And she's controlling some supernatural being. _Again._ It runs on belief, or something Disney like that. She uses its power to get into your mind and make you believe bad stuff. And then because your mind believes that bad stuff, it becomes real. She tried making me envision a scenario where you were all lets-kill-Dean possessed boy again. But I didn't buy it. So then she hacked into my memories. Made me 'relive' all the bad parts."

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"I know!" Dean said. "Crazy, huh? But she's crazy and crazy is as crazy does. This whole goddamn thing is crazy. The only reason I'm not being sucked into this crazy abyss," and here Dean ignored Sam's skeptical look, "is because she went too far. She tried to make me believe you were getting all scratched up. And I heard you yell from, you know, outside my head, and that's when it all clicked. And now her little mind experiment is over. I know this is all fake, so I can stop it. See how the plane isn't doing the plummeting thing anymore? That's me hacking into Meg's brain hack."

Sam was frowning. He looked troubled, thoughtful. Mainly just confused. Dean didn't blame him. "So…who's this Meg person doing all this? Allegedly."

"Meg. She's…Meg. Your old flame. You two go way back."

Dean suddenly sat up straight and looked around the plane. "Speaking of, I bet her nosy little self is listening in right now. Meg!" Dean yelled, hopping up and stalking down the aisle, eyes scouring the seats and then looking up at the ceiling. "I bet you she's manifested as some security camera. Meg!" Dean began carefully searching the ceiling and walls.

"Dean, are you sure you're okay?"

"Do I look okay!"

Dean stopped and frowned, looking from Sam's blank look to his unharmed, uncut, unbroken body. "Huh…" But then a rush of pain flooded his body, sparking through him, reopening the gashes on his face, his chest, his back. Cracking into his ribs and pooling into his broken finger. Suddenly it hurt to breathe, to move, to think.

"Dammit, you had to remind me."

He heard his brother yell his name and felt Sam catch him as he keeled over. He felt himself lowered to the floor – to the rough carpet. Or was it a rocky ground? No… he wouldn't go back to that cave. Here was good, here was safe. Here he could control the pain.

The floor became purple carpet again. And some of the pain retreated. His body still throbbed – a deep, continual ache, but it wasn't as sharp as it could've been. As it was in that cave.

"Jesus, what happened?" Sam was kneeling next to him, eyes wide.

"Got bitch slapped by my brain."

Sam leant back against the wall, next to Dean. Staring at nothing. He opened his mouth, but closed it again.

"What is it, Sammy?" Dean glanced over.

"Just…if all this is just a part of your head. And once you realise it isn't real, it stops being real - And I'm not saying it is, just…if it is - then why aren't I frozen like everyone else?"

Dean shifted, straightening his back, lifting some pressure off his ribs. He shrugged slightly. "Coz you're the man of my dreams."

Sam snorted. "Even when you're bleeding to death, you're an ass."

Dean chuckled, ignoring how the action shot sparks through his ribs. "Yeah," he smirked. "You know you end up with some psychic mojo. Move over John Edward."

"What?"

"Nothing," Dean waved off, too tired to keep teasing. He could barely keep his eyes open. He'd been tired before – in his line of work, sleep didn't always come easy – but never like this. The exhaustion was eating into his mind – a fog clouding his vision. A black fog. It ate away at the scene in front of him, cave walls taking its place.

Dean heard Sam gasp and realised he too could see the plane flicker in and out of existence. "I suddenly have so much more sympathy for Kurt Russell's character in Vanilla Sky," Sam whispered, shaken.

"I don't know how I'm going to get us out of this, Sam," Dean said, the words coming out slurred, his body numbing. "I don't want you to find me like this. Don't want dad to find me like this. It's what she wants. She doesn't want to kill us. She wants to break us. Wants him to find us like that."

Sam turned to Dean, forcing his eyes away from the disintegrating scene before them. He gripped Dean's shoulder. "Dean, look at me."

Dean raised his eyes. Sam was a blur. But his voice was clear. His hand warm on his shoulder. "You're going to get through this. We always get through this."

Dean blinked and saw a cave. Blinked and felt cold air. Blinked and Sam's voice began to disappear. Blinked and he was alone again.

* * *

Dean jerked awake. He was back in that cave. Arms bound, Sam gone. Meg was here, though. She sat across from him, lazily leaning back on her hands, watching him. The warmth of the plane was gone. Dean was cold, freezing, in fact. The cave emanated a chill unlike anything Dean had felt before. It crept up his back like frozen fingers, like death's caress. He was shivering, shaking. Unable to feel his lips, the tips of his fingers. Was he going into shock? Was that it? The cold was racking his body, but the more he shivered the more bursts of heat shot up from his ribs. And that's when he realised what was wrong. It wasn't the cold cave, it was all his injuries. During his little mind trip, they'd had time to sit, fester, register. 

Not good. He couldn't go into shock. Not while Sam was still stuck around that corner. Not while their dad still might still walk into this mousetrap. And not while he still had a barrel of insults sitting on his lips, ready to spit at Meg.

Despite the cold, a hot flush crept onto Dean's face. He could feel sweat dripping down his face. Or was it blood? He could feel blood run from the gashes crisscrossed along his chest, his back. It trickled down from the numerous tears in his arms, irritating him. His mouth tasted coppery. But it was the heat from his finger and from his ribs that engulfed him. His ribs were broken. They had to be. Angry sparks of pain exploded in his chest with every breath, every shiver. So Dean sat very still, kept his breaths very shallow. He was both cold and hot, shivering and sweating.

"Finally come back to us, have you?"

"Couldn't resist," he managed to say, trying his best to ignore his body's tremors. "You're like the friggin' Bermuda Triangle."

Meg smiled. Completely relaxed. "You and your imaginary brother had quite the chat there. Seems you uncovered my plan. Papa Winchester's going to find you, bloodied, broken, whimpering. And maybe he'll realise he doesn't have what it takes to see this little crusade through." Meg slid herself closer to Dean. "Maybe."

"And maybe he'll knock your block off." God, he hated her. That smile. That calm tone. He hated that she was doing this to him – to his family. That she was kicking his ass! If this was some universal payback for all the girls he'd pulled a bad pick-up line on, he had one helluva bone to pick with karma.

"Baby, not if I knock yours off first." She stood up and kicked him, her foot connecting with Dean's ribs, jolting them. Dean felt them grind against each other, felt them press against his lungs. Felt all this a second before the pain exploded, shooting up his body; bursting behind his eyes in spots of black, white, blue, red. The pain robbed him off his breath, his sight, his hearing. He couldn't scream or cry out. All he could do was wait for some of the pain to pass. Or to pass out.

"See what happens when you don't sit quiet like a good little hostage?"

Dean didn't answer. His eyes shone with tears that refused to fall, tears that he didn't give _permission_ to appear. Tears which the pain and exhaustion called forth, blurring his vision, choking him in their attempt to escape. Making his hazel eyes shimmer; washing away the veneer of strength he carefully placed in front of those eyes, leaving a collage of broken, sparkling bits in its place. But he wouldn't let those tears fall – Dean would hold onto that one victory. His hands hung useless, his lips were burning, his chest constricting and cutting off his air, but he still had control over this. He always had control over this. And he'd be damned if he was going to let this bitch break his resolve too.

Meg crouched in front of him and placed her hand gently against his cheek. Dean jerked his head away, disgusted by the way his heart sped up and by how shallow and weak his breaths sounded. His energy was draining, and soon it'd leave a cold corpse behind.

"You're no use to me anymore," Meg said. "Your mind won't play along. And if it doesn't play along, then how else I am going to pass the time until Papa bear joins us?" She tilted her head to the side and watched him carefully. "Maybe Sam's head won't be so quick to close me off. Those college kids have open minds, you know. Oh…wait, no, you don't know."

Dean froze. "No," he said. "You can't kill both of us. You need one of us alive. You need Sam alive."

Meg smiled. "Aw, I think you misunderstand me in your…weakened…state. I'm not going to kill Sam. Yet. I'm going to use his mind to kill you."

Her words sunk in, pulling him down with them.

"That's what's great about my new demon toy. It doesn't matter who's doing the believing. As long as that person thinks it's real, it _becomes _real." Meg straightened Dean's shirt, smoothing down some of the creases. "Think you can fight off your own brother? Think you can stand seeing what he really thinks of you? Who knows? Maybe you'll realise that he _wants _you gone."

Through heavy eyelids, Dean watched Meg, the fear eating through his pain. He knew that he didn't have the strength to fight off Sam. "Don't," he whispered. Knowing that the second she entered Sam's mind, it was over. Sam didn't know what was going on, Sam wouldn't know that he was stuck re-living his own memories. He was going to die at his brother's unwilling hands. "Please, don't." Not this way, any other way. Just not this one. Sam would never forgive himself.

Meg's smile widened and she hopped up. She gestured at the corpse and it followed her out.

Dean shut his eyes, the tears finally escaping, sliding down his cheeks and falling from them without a sound.

* * *

Sam used his shoulder to wipe some sweat off his face. His breath was labored and his muscles tired. But he kept struggling to maneuver his bound arms over his legs so that they'd sit in front of him instead. It was more difficult than he'd expected. 

"Why'd I have to be the tall one?" Sam muttered, managing to shimmy his arms up to the back of his knees before getting stuck. _Great, just great._ Now he felt like a stuffed pig. Sam rolled to the side, focusing on sliding his bound legs through his arms inch by inch. Where was David Blaine when you needed him?

He felt ridiculous, knew he _looked _ridiculous. His face warmed up at the thought of Dean or Meg walking in to find him like this. If Dean couldstill walk…

Sam mentally shook off the thought. He hadn't heard a peep from Dean since that scream, but that didn't have to mean anything. Dean could be fine. Meg had probably just gagged him to stop him spitting bad puns her way. Hell, Sam would've.

But that thought didn't relax him. He cried out in relief when he finally got his arms over his legs. Now he was a bit better equipped to stave off another attack. His arm and face still stung from where the invisible claws had torn into him. They'd come from nowhere and disappeared almost as fast. Or, he assumed they'd disappeared. You could never tell with the invisible ones.

Sam's eyes slid over to the bend where Dean had disappeared. It was killing him not knowing what was going on. He couldn't just keep sitting here, waiting. _Yeah, and what are you going to do? Hop to his rescue?_

"Shut up, brain," Sam muttered, using the wall to leverage himself up. Sometimes you had to throw reason to the wind. Especially when your family was in trouble. Dean lived by this philosophy, it was about time Sam did too.

"Going so soon?"

Sam's head snapped up find Meg sauntering up to him, the corpse not far behind.

"Where's Dean?" Sam demanded.

Meg smiled, her eyes glinting. "He's a little tied up right now."

"If you hurt him, even a bit…" Sam trailed off, his voice too shaky. He let the resolve show in his face instead.

Meg's smile grew wider. "I hurt him a lot."

Sam's breath froze in his lungs as a cold crept over him. "What did you do, Meg?" he whispered.

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" She pressed her hand against his cheek and Sam winced as he felt it sizzle. And then fell to the ground as the world began to waver and spin.

* * *

"Come with us tonight!" 

Sam chuckled and shoved some more fries into his mouth. "I already have plans," he said, laughing at the look John shot him. "Seriously."

"Dude, let me guess, you've got a big date with the librarian lined up?"

Sam chucked a fry at him. "You know, if you studied a bit more ad partied a bit less you wouldn't have to keep stealing my notes."

"I wouldn't have to steal them if you'd just lend them to me."

"You're an idiot," Gemma said.

"Thank you!" Sam exclaimed. "Someone else here agrees."

"We all agree," Pete added, from where he lay on the grass near their benches, his face shaded from the sun with an open Law book.

John kicked Pete's leg before turning back to Sam. "Man, you always get perfect grades anyways. One night ain't gonna make a difference."

"Let him study," Jess said from next to Sam. "If he finishes early, then he'll come by, won't you Sam?"

"That's right." Sam shot Jess a grateful smile.

John sighed. "If you're gonna keep taking his side, hook up already."

Sam laughed, embarrassed. He turned to Jess who shot him a mischievous look. Sam looked away, knowing a goofy smile had invaded his face. He was about to kick John under the table when he felt a familiar presence. He turned around and saw a figure standing in the distance. Sam squinted and held his hand up to shade his eyes from the sun. _Dean?_

"Hey, guys, I'll be back in a second, okay?" He hopped up and moved towards the figure.

Sure enough, it was Dean. Staring around with a frown.

"Dean? What are you doing here?" Sam asked, annoyed. And a little confused.

Dean looked away from the bright sky, glancing at the table where Sam had walked from, then back to Sam. "We're in Stanford? What are we doing here?"

"_I _know why I'm here. But what are you doing here?" Sam laughed suddenly, running his hands through his hair. "God, dad sent you, didn't he? It hasn't even been a year and he's already trying to get me back."

"What?" Dean said. He paused suddenly, eyes dimming in thought. "Why the hell would Meg give you a memory of Stanford," he muttered. "One of your college pals doesn't have a black belt in karate, do they?"

Sam frowned, watching Dean carefully. "No. Dean, what's this about? Why are you here?"

Dean shook his head a little, wiping the confusion from his face. "Okay, don't ask me how she's done it, but somehow I'm jacked into your memories. Because I was sure as hell never here in real life." Dean glanced back over at Sam's table of friends. "Geez, man, you know you look like a yuppie hanging out with those polo-shirt geeks?"

"You came all this way just to insult me?" Sam asked, growing frustrated.

"Okay, look, Sam. This," he pointed gestured around them, "isn't real. It's just a memory. It's important that you get this. Meg – remember Meg? She's using your brain against me. Polo shirts and bright-assed skies will do it – that toothpick got that much right. But you're really stuck in a cave. With me. Okay? Any of this coming back to you?"

Sam stared at Dean blankly.

Dean sighed. "You think I'm insane, don't you?"

"No, of course not. Meg. Cave. Brain. Got it. Makes perfect sense. Can I go back to lunch now?"

"Come on, Sam! Think! You've already done the college thing! Remember dad? He went missing? You came with me to find him? Any of this ringing a bell?"

Sam's face suddenly softened and he put a hand on Dean's shoulder. "Hey, are you okay? Did something happen to dad?"

Dean looked from Sam's hand to his concerned face. He rolled his eyes. "Of course it's not ringing a bell. If you had to choose between your life now and your life back then, you'd choose Stanford in a heartbeat. So how the hell am I meant to convince you none of this is real anymore?"

Sam dropped his hand. "Look, I'm going back my friends. I'm sorry you and dad didn't want me to leave, but acting crazy isn't going to change that." Sam turned his back on Dean and headed over to his friends.

Dean watched, a twinge of hurt – or was it envy? – pinching his chest. And then the world spun away.

* * *

Sam backed away from the shapeshifter, watching it carefully, arms raised. He'd been trained as a warrior, and even if this thing did have his brother's face, Sam knew he could defend himself. 

Dean looked from Sam's defensive stance to the room around them. His eyes widened. "You think I'm the shapeshifter!"

"Not going to work," Sam growled. "You better not have hurt my brother."

"Jesus, Sam, that's sweet and all, but I _am _your brother!"

Sam scoffed and stepped forward, expertly flinging out his arm. Dean ducked to the side, Sam's fist grazing his jaw as he stepped back.

"Woah!" Dean cried out, holding out his hands. "Dude, I am _not _going to fight you, so snap out of it!"

Sam swung his fist again. Dean caught Sam's arm and used it to propel Sam away from him. "Sam! I mean it! Stop trying to kick my ass! You couldn't do it when we were kids, and you wont be able to now."

"Tell me where Dean is," Sam said, glaring at him, fists clenched in front of him.

"What's that?" Dean said mimicking Sam's pose. "No wonder the shapeshifter beat your ass; are you trying to be Mike Tyson? The bad guys don't play fair, Sam. We don't fight them in boxing rings."

Sam frowned and stepped back, lowering his fists slightly. "You're insane."

Dean sighed. "Yeah well, I may be loony, but what does that make you?"

"Sane."

"Smart ass," Dean muttered.

Sam's frown deepened. He lowered his fists completely and cocked his head. "Dean?"

Dean grinned, relief washing through him. "You're a bit slow on the uptake, but you get there eventually."

Sam laughed softly, disbelief robbing him off his voice. But then he felt his cheek sizzle and for a second he saw Dean tied up somewhere, along with Rebecca.

Sam shook his head, clearing it, and stared at this…thing…in front of him with renewed anger. It had almost tricked him.

Sam swung his fist and it connected with Dean's nose with a deafening crack.

* * *

Dean landed on the floor of the asylum with a gasp. 

"Oh, goddamn it," he lifted his hand to feel his nose. It was tender, swelling, bloodied. He pulled his hand away with a wince. "This day sucks."

But he froze when he heard a gun cocked above him. He looked up and couldn't help the spike of fear that ran down his back. Sam held a gun to his head.

"Sam," Dean soothed, holding out his hands, slowly sliding up and into a sitting position. "You're being possessed, okay? By two things this time – your memory of Ellicott and Meg. I know you _think_ you're angry with me, but trust me, you don't want to pull that trigger."

Sam watched Dean, his breath labored, his muscles tense. There was something to what Dean was saying, something familiar…but his confusion was instantly engulfed by the blind, red, rage consuming him, shaking his vision, eating at his soul.

"Put the gun down," Dean said. "I'm serious, man. I'm using cop show phrases here, so you know I mean it."

"Shut up," Sam responded calmly. "It's your fault we're stuck in this fucking cave. You just had to follow the scream. Couldn't wait five seconds to work out a plan. Now we're all going to die."

Dean froze, looking at Sam in shock. "You remember all that?"

Sam did and he didn't. All he could really feel was the rage. The words spilling out of his mouth were coming from somewhere distant, somewhere his consciousness didn't have access to.

"Do you even care that she's going to kill us both?" Sam continued, blood dripping from his nose. "That dad's going to find us butchered? That you're going to die and leave me to hunt this thing alone? I never wanted this!"

Dean was watching Sam with a growing sense of despair. Was it rock salt or bullets in that gun? Was he about to die? At his brother's hands, from his brother's anger? Heat emanated from his chest, flushing his cheeks. He was panicking.

"Nothing to say for yourself?" Sam snarled.

"Sam, listen to me. I'm sorry, okay? I'll…I'll get us out of this. Just…Give me a chance to get us out of this."

"How?"

Dean couldn't answer. And Sam pulled the trigger.

Dean felt the rock salt collide with his chest, burning him, sending him flying backwards. Sam believed it was his fault, that he deserved that rock salt burning his chest. And then Dean believed it. And his chest burned stronger and longer than he could've imagined possible, and he was being shot, again and again, being flung back – from that cave, from the asylum, from these memories, and into a black void that crept into his head and leeched away his consciousness. Swinging past him, faster than he could catch or hold on to, were images –memories, feelings, moments. And the black crept into Dean's mind – deep and dark. Swallowing those memories, those feelings, those thoughts. Swallowing the pain racking his body. Swallowing everything. And Dean didn't fight it. He let it come, he welcomed it, he willed it forward. He entered it without looking back. And then there was nothing.

* * *

TBC 


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Sorry for the long wait! Essay week attacked with a vengeance! Again, I love reviews and I love all you reviewers, hehe. Hope you guys enjoy. **  
**

**Choices: Chapter 6**

The gun slid from Sam's fingers, clanging to the ground with an echo that reverberated into his ears. Dean was gone, disappearing in a puff of black smoke. And now Sam was alone in a cold room with echoes that whispered back his name.

His rage was quickly dissipating, draining from his body until the burning on his cheek was the only heat that remained. Suddenly tired, Sam slid to the floor. His eyelids fluttered shut and his head drooped forward. There was something…something he needed to remember, but his mind was being invaded by sleep. Somewhere through the fog he remembered a gunshot and the sound of a body hitting the ground. But soon those too were smothered into silence. And sleep stole him away.

Unfortunately it wasn't long before he was brought back by a light tapping on his cheek. Sam forced open his eyelids, only to shut them again at the sight that met him. He was back in the cave, back with Meg.

"What the hell did you just do to me?" Sam slurred out, his cheek still sizzling. He was disoriented, bits of memory floating to the surface of his mind only to be tangled with pieces of other memories and recent dreams.

Meg leaned back and sighed dramatically. "Dean went bye-bye. There endeth the ride."

Sam squinted at her, trying to make sense of she was saying…Wait. Something nagged at his memory. Something about…Dean. Hadn't he just been in here? In here with Sam? Yes, he had! They'd been arguing…

Sam's chest began to feel heavy, as if anticipating what his mind was on the verge of remembering.

Meg smiled suddenly. "Oh well. Hadn't planned for him to leave the building so soon, but I still got to see the show."

"Are you going to stop speaking in metaphors anytime soon?"

"Okay," Meg said, surprising Sam. She leant forward, her eyes sparkling. "You killed him."

The words circled Sam's head slowly, brushing against his mind, teasing him, before slowly sinking in and pulling Sam with them until the pressure on his lungs and heart grew almost too much.

And then Sam remembered. Dean, Stanford, the asylum. Dean trying to warn him, to stop him. The fight in Rebecca's house…Jesus, he broke Dean's nose! How was that even possible! She'd somehow…entered his head and manipulated his memories. Was that what his dream that morning had been? A manipulated memory? Did believing it make Dean's injuries bleed into reality?

_Oh god…_

The asylum. He'd been possessed again, angry and irrational. But Sam hadn't meant what he'd said, what he'd felt. He hadn't believed any of it. Had he? Then Sam's world shattered, letting the rest of the memories spill up through the cracks.

He'd pulled the trigger.

He'd pulled the fucking trigger! Watched as the rock salt collided with Dean's chest and flung him backwards, his eyes never leaving Sam's.

But in the moment when Sam's guilt was about to overflow and replace his shock, the sound of running footsteps invaded the quiet cave. Sam's head whipped towards the noise, irrationally thinking it was Dean. A mere second before the owner appeared, Meg gave a strangled yell as an invisible force flung her backwards. Then from around the corner, their father appeared, rubbing an amulet in one hand and reciting something under his breath. Meg skidded further across the cave, her fingers angrily clawing the ground, trying to stop her momentum.

"Get away from my son."

Sam's mouth slid open. "Dad? You're here!"

John ran up to Sam, muttering another chant that instantly unfurled the fog binding Sam's feet. John quickly knelt and began tugging at the ropes binding Sam's arms. "Of course I'm here."

"But…what…how did you do that?" Sam asked, referring to the way he'd dispelled the fog and overpowered Meg. He was shocked to see him here at all. He never thought his dad would just walk into a trap like this.

John finally unknotted the ropes, pulling them away from Sam's arms. He looked at Sam, a smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "I did some research on the way over. Don't tell me you boys just barge into these things unprepared?" John suddenly looked around. "Where's Dean?"

Sam's eyes snapped towards the corner where Dean had disappeared hours ago. He glanced at his dad, dread robbing him of his voice. He leapt up and hurried towards the other room, terrified of what might be awaiting him, all the while praying silently. Daring to hope that Meg's mind games were just that. Games. John quickly followed, knowing instantly that something was wrong. They turned the corner and froze.

Slumped against the wall, head hanging limply, and legs sprawled in front of him, was Dean. He wasn't moving. Sam couldn't even tell if he was breathing. His shirt was a mess of torn, bloodied cloth with angry welts and gashes peeking through the tears. Blood dripped from Dean's face, splattering onto his chest. His arms were bound tightly, but they could still see the glistening cuts.

Unable to feel his legs, to feel anything outside the throbbing in his head, Sam stumbled further into the alcove, dropping to his knees beside his brother.

"Dean?" he whispered. No reaction. Sam reached up with trembling hands, lifting Dean's head as gently as possible. A gasp of horror tangled in his throat. Dean's face was a bloodied mess and dark bruises had already begun to creep up under his eyes. A broken nose.

_No…_

"Dean?" Sam asked again, still only able to whisper. He shook Dean's shoulder gently. "Dean?" No reaction. "Dean? Come on man, just…blink or something. Please..." Against his pale skin, the red on his face stood out mockingly. His skin felt cold and clammy. His lips were tinged with blue.

Barely holding it together, his chest feeling like it was about to implode, Sam felt for a pulse. He quickly pulled away when he couldn't find one. Shocked, his eyesight made blurry by unshed tears, Sam could only stare at his brother. At his hanging head, his limp form. God, all Sam wanted was for Dean to raise his head and yell at him. To yell at Sam for breaking his nose, for not believing him, for doing this!

But Dean just lay there. Choking on his grief, Sam began urgently tugging at the rope binding his brother's hands. He shouldn't be tied up like this!

John still stood frozen, watching his son's still form. Watching the blood drip from his face and splatter onto his shirt. Each drop adding to the growing red stain, each drop another mark. Each drop a reminder of the two red ones that had made him look up that night to see his wife bleeding on the ceiling.

Sam's distress brought John out of his stupor and he grabbed a knife from his pocket, running up to his sons. "Here," he said, pulling Sam's hands away and using the pocketknife to cut the rope. With the pressure off his hands, Dean's body slumped further forward. John quickly caught him and leaned Dean against the cave wall.

John pressed his finger against Dean's neck, feeling for a pulse. He had to shut his eyes and will back a cry of relief when he felt one. "He's still alive," John said, smiling at Sam who was staring at him with wide, scared eyes.

"…What? Really?" Sam looked at Dean again, trying to see the life that his dad felt beneath his finger.

"His pulse is faint. Erratic. If we don't…" John trailed off, noticing how Sam was looking at him. He hadn't looked at him like that in years. A silent plea to take control and tell him what to do, tell him that it was going to be okay and that Dean would be fine. And it almost broke John's heart that he couldn't do any of that, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to try. John turned back to Dean, one hand holding his shoulder tightly, stopping his limp body from tilting over.

"Dean," John commanded. An instruction.

"Dean," John said again, watching his son closely. "Open your eyes, Dean." No reaction. Nothing. John grit his teeth as panic began to cloud his head. "Listen to me, dammit. Open your eyes!"

A flicker. A blink. A groan.

Sam's mouth slid open and he would've shouted with joy if he wasn't so mesmerized by that small frown slowly transforming his brother's face.

"…Dad?" Dean slurred out, his lips barely moving, his eyes still shut.

John smiled and cupped Dean's face. "Yeah, it's me. Me and Sam are going to get you out of here, okay?"

Head still limp, eyes still shut, Dean's lips moved, wanting to say something else. But he coughed suddenly and reeled back in pain. John had to quickly put his hand to the back of Dean's head to stop it smashing against the cave. "Whoa, take it easy there, Dean."

Dean's eyes flew open and his mouth gaped – gasping without sound. Then his eyes fluttered shut and his body went limp again as he sunk back into unconsciousness, falling against his dad.

"No, no," Sam said, rubbing Dean's arm to try and get his attention back. "He must have broken his ribs," Sam said, noticing Dean's lips turning a darker blue. "Shit! He can barely breathe!"

John wrapped an arm around Dean's shoulders and pulled him from the ground. Sam hurriedly followed, draping one of Dean's arms over his shoulders and then using his free arm to grab Dean tightly around the waist, careful to avoid his ribs. John did the same and they half dragged, half carried Dean through the cave. Both could feel how cold he was, but neither dared mention it out loud.

Back in the main area of the cave, Meg's legs and arms were bound by the black fog and it covered her mouth like a gag. She was struggling ferociously and glaring at them with unbridled anger. Sam would have smirked if he didn't hate her so much. Would've killed her there and then if his worry for his brother – for this limp, cold figure in his arms – didn't easily overpower that hate.

"Leave her, come on," John said, understanding Sam's fury, feeling it himself. He gripped Dean tighter and, with Sam's support, began hurrying towards the cave's exit. Jeez, Dean was heavy.

Outside, the cold air hit Sam in the face, stinging the cuts on his face and making him shiver. He tightened his hold on Dean, trying to trap what little heat Dean's body had left. He started to head for the Impala but felt a jolt as John began to head in the opposite direction.

"We'll get his car later," John said. "Mine's over here."

Sam nodded numbly, following his dad, Dean's body feeling heavier with each second. He felt like he was betraying Dean by abandoning his car there. Sam shook off the thought. Dean's crazy obsession with the Impala was beginning to rub off.

John opened the back door, helping Sam lift Dean into the back seat. Sam jumped in beside him. John stood for a second, his hand on the car door, watching Sam cradle Dean's bloodied form. Sam tore his eyes away from his brother to look at his dad. He raised his eyebrows. John nodded in acknowledgement, closing the door and hopping into the front seat. The car swerved onto the road and left a cloud of dust sparkling in the night air.

Sam held Dean tighter, stopping him from sliding off the seat. He cradled his limp body close to him, refusing to let his brother slip away. He leant his head against Dean's, terrified at how cold he felt. Sam noticed two streaks on Dean's face, where tears had traced a path through the dirt and blood. Sam bit his lip to keep his own tears from slipping over.

"Hang on, Dean," he whispered. "You're going to be fine….Please be fine."

Dean just lay there, Sam's arms the only thing keeping him from slipping away.

* * *

The hospital door banged open and Sam and John staggered in, carrying Dean between them. All his skin now had a deathly blue tinge. Two nurses hurried towards the family, a stretcher appearing as if from nowhere. It was so much like a movie - the white coats, the firing questions, the commotion. Dean lifted onto a stretcher, the mask placed over his blue lips, the cloth wiping away the blood on his face. Or maybe it felt surreal because of the throbbing in Sam's head. It had grown louder in the time it took them to get to the hospital, blurring Sam's vision and dulling his hearing. Everything around him was turning gray, whipping past him like a movie in fast forward. The only thing his mind could concentrate on, that made him believe this wasn't a movie set, was his brother's face underneath that mask. Still, quiet, without his trademark grin. And his dad's hand absently brushing Dean's hair as he talked to the doctor. 

The next thing Sam knew he was sitting on one of the hard, plastic chairs in the waiting room. Waiting. He looked up to find his dad pacing restlessly in front of him. Just like Dean. Always had to be moving. Sam sighed and rested his head against his hands. "I did this," he whispered, talking to his shoes, the words coming out hot and muffled.

His dad's footsteps stopped. "She used the Vebiel to get into your mind," he said. A statement. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, realizing what had happened.

Sam looked up. "The what?"

John sat down in the chair next to Sam's, placing his hands inside his jacket's pockets, not knowing what else to do with them. "The Vebiel. That black fog. It's an ancient entity. There are no clear accounts about where it came from, but it used to be worshipped. I don't know by who. But it has the power to enter minds and change memories, or make people believe something that shouldn't be real outside our heads."

"But then it becomes real," Sam cut in.

John nodded. "Yes. It used to…help…its worshippers. Make the sick believe they were well. Make the starving 'see' their crops grow again. But after awhile, as the generations went by, the worshippers stopped believingHe became a myth to them, no more. So without their belief, it weakened and eventually its physical form eroded and it became just the black fog you saw in the cave."

"That's why Meg needed a corpse to trap it in. An artificial case."

"Exactly. It's been hiding away in that cave for hundreds of years. She found it somehow. Learnt how to control it. She has it trapped in that corpse and is controlling its powers through something like this." John dug around in his pocket and withdrew the amulet he'd used to turn the fog against Meg.

Sam reached for it and absently rubbed his fingers along the jagged sides. Still stuck in a slight haze, shock numbing his chest and slowing his comprehension, it took him a while to realize what was wrong with this explanation.

"This is plastic!" he exclaimed, holding up the amulet in surprise.

John smirked a little. A smile so like Dean's. "The spell used to control the Vebiel needs to house the thing's essence somewhere. It doesn't matter where – the spell can't tell the difference between an ancient amulet and 60 cent knock-off."

Sam scratched his head, stress etching lines into his face as he tried to grapple with this information while taming the nagging feeling in his stomach. He was desperately waiting to hear if Dean would be okay. The doctors had wheeled him away and Sam was terrified that it would be his last image of Dean – on a stretcher, face covered with a plastic oxygen mask.

John's eyes softened at Sam's distress. "If you break the thing being used to house the essence, you break her control of it. I used this amulet for my spell, but my access to its powers is very limited compared to hers. Using the fog as rope is the best trick I had. To be able to use your minds like that…she must be housing the energy in something bigger."

Sam sighed in frustration and leaned his head against the cold hospital wall. Just like that cave's wall and Dean's skin. Always cold.

"This morning…last night, I mean. I had a dream, at least then I thought it was a dream, of Dean getting hurt. And then when I woke up Dean had a bruise on his wrist. And later I had that same…vision…and Dean got this cut on his head. But Meg wasn't there and neither was any black fog." Sam looked over at his dad, wanting an explanation.

John frowned. "She has a powerful hold on it. I didn't realize it was that strong," he trailed off, lost in thought. "She can use it to enter people's minds without directly touching them. But the effects are much weaker that way. That's probably why she needed to get you both into that cave."

Sam abruptly stood up, unable to just keep sitting and talking while Dean was locked away somewhere, being probed and prodded back into life. Sam ran a hand over his face, trying to block out the image of Dean's battered face. "God, how is any of this even possible! I mean yeah, I get that we deal in the fucked up, but this is beyond insane. Dean might be dead because of my _memories?_" Sam laughed suddenly, running his hands through his hair again, a nervous habit.

"Cut it out," John said, surprising Sam. John was staring at him sternly. "This isn't your fault."

"Not my fault?" Sam raised his eyebrows. "_My _memories, _my _psychic alter ego. _My _finger pulling the trigger. Who else am I meant to blame? The universe?" Sam scoffed and absently kicked at the floor.

"Blaming yourself isn't going to help anyone. That thing is powerful. More than anyone can be asked to fight. There was nothing you could do to prevent this. Dean will pull through. He's strong."

"More like stubborn." Sam glanced at his dad, remembering how the 'Daevas' had attacked him in the cave but disappeared before doing any real damage. "Dean fought it off," Sam realised. "_He_ didn't let that thing control him." Sam's guilt ballooned and it was only the doctor's approaching footsteps that kept it from consuming him.

John quickly stood up next to Sam and they both watched the doctor approach. Sam had a million questions formed and ready to fire: Was Dean in pain? Was there any damage? Were his ribs broken?

Was he alive?

But his tongue felt too thick and his throat too tight to speak them aloud. So they festered in his head as he just watched the doctor. Waiting.

"He's going be fine," the doctor said, smiling.

Sam's breath untangled from his throat, the throbbing in his head disappeared and suddenly the room around him came into sharp focus again. He could've kissed the doctor in the state he was in. But, since that'd most likely get him kicked out of the hospital, he grinned instead.

"His ribs were broken and have punctured his lungs, and he was suffering from blood loss and severe shock, but we've stabilized him for the time being and I strongly recommend he stay here until we're certain his injuries are stable enough for him to move freely."

Sam nodded, the grin disappearing under a concerned frown. "Can we see him?"

"Yes, of course. Just make sure you let him get lots of rest once he wakes up."

"Thank you doctor," John said, offering a tight smile.

The doctor nodded and moved around them, to the next group of waiting relatives.

Sam looked over at his dad who returned his relieved smile. For a second the air between was completely free of tension. "Dean's strong," John repeated.

"Stubborn," Sam smirked, heading for Dean's room, anxious to see him. He stopped when he noticed his dad not following. Sam turned around to find his dad lifting his bag onto his shoulder. Slowly, reluctantly.

Sam's mouth slid open a little. "You're leaving again?" He walked back up to his dad, eyes traveling between the duffle bag and his dad's guilty eyes. "I don't believe this."

"I have to," John said quietly. "Nothing's changed. It's still out there."

For a moment Sam struggled to find any words. He was torn between shock, anger and hurt. He clenched his fists and shook his head. "You're not even going to see him first?"

John shut his eyes momentarily before looking away. "I'm sorry, Sam. About what happened to Dean, about everything. But the thing that killed your mother is going to keep coming after you boys unless I stop it. And Dean was right." John looked back over at Sam, emotion making his eyes sparkle. "You boys are my Achilles' heel," he smiled slightly.

Sam frowned, confused, angry, distraught, unable to see that logic. "I think today's proved that it's not exactly rainbows and butterflies when we're on our own. We need to face this thing together!"

John placed his hand firmly on Sam's shoulder. "I've told you, there's still time. You and Dean will both have a role. I promise. But not yet."

Sam shrugged off his dad's hand, anger clouding his head. "This is ridiculous!" Sam said, throwing up his hands with a hollow laugh. "Dean almost died today, dad! Is that the price you're willing to pay to hunt down mom's killer? If he _had_ died today, and you _do_ finally find this thing and destroy it, will it be worth it? Will you have the thing's blood running down your hands and feel…_anything_…knowing that it was Dean's blood you swapped it for?"

Anger sparked through John's eyes and Sam prepared himself for the backlash. But it didn't come. John's shoulders just sort of deflated and he looked off at a point just beyond Sam's shoulder. "It would have killed me to have lost my son today."

"_Both _sons," Sam corrected with an unwavering gaze.

John gaze flickered back to Sam, understanding that Sam would never forgive him if the hunt ever killed Dean. "Dean didn't die today," John said, hitching his bag higher on his shoulder and erasing the emotion from his face. "You're both stronger and smarter than that. But if I don't find out where the Vebiel's energy is being stored, it's going to keep coming after you both. And it's me they're after, not you. I have to go alone on this. For now." His tone softened. "It's safer for us all this way." John patted Sam's shoulder again, before turning to walk away.

Sam clenched his fists, trying to keep his angry tears at bay. "Just see Dean first," Sam blurted out. "Please."

John paused and half turned back. "Tell him…tell him I said hey. And that I'm goddamn relieved he pulled though. Take of yourselves, Sam."

And Sam was left to face his brother – and his guilt – on his own.

* * *

It was one of the hardest things John had to do, leave Sam standing there. Leave the hospital where Dean had almost died. So John forced his legs to keep moving, past the plastic chairs, past the reception desk, past the hospital entrance. 

He had to leave. Because he knew if he stayed, if he stared at his son's bruised and broken face, he knew he wouldn't be able to walk away. To fight the temptation to stay by Dean's bedside and make sure neither he nor Sam ever got hurt like that again. To just give it all up.

So John walked away.

* * *

There was a beeping somewhere in the distance. Dean tried to ignore it but the sound snuck into his head and disrupted his sleep. He tried to turn away from it but found that he could barely move. And that any movement he did make sent a sharp pain through his ribs. So he lay still. Every beep followed by a memory of what had happened. Beep. Meg. Beep. The cave. Sam. The gun. 

Dean forced himself through the haze, through the pain, and opened his eyes. An room stared back at him, quiet and still.

He listened to the beep of his heart monitor to fill the silence.

* * *

TBC  



	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: **Second last chapter! Yes, chapter 8, I'm pretty sure at least, will be its last. Thank you again to everyone who's reviewed! Keep letting me know what you think ;) **  
**

**  
Choices: Chapter 7**

Dean lay still, listening to his breath struggle past his lips. It hurt to breathe but at the same time his body felt numb, dull prickles replacing the throbbing he'd felt mere hours before. They must have doped him up, which would explain why his eyes felt so heavy and why they were watering with the effort to remain open. He was exhausted. But he refused to let his eyes shut again, refused to let his mind revisit that cave or that asylum; refused to find out if Meg and her pet fog were waiting for him just beyond his consciousness. So Dean lay there, listening to his breath rattle past his lips in an empty hospital room and trying to ignore that his family wasn't there.

His eyes flickered towards the open door. A shadow had fallen across the threshold. It wavered and moved as somebody paced back and forth just outside the room. Sam. Dean would bet his last breath on it; he'd recognise that restless pacing anywhere. Dean would've smiled if his body were in any mood to obey, and if he wasn't wrestling with the sudden urge to pretend he was asleep.

Dean watched as the shadow stopped fidgeting and Sam's head peeked around the doorframe. Sam's eyes widened when he saw Dean, and he quickly stepped inside the room. "You're awake!"

"Yeah," Dean said after a second. He shifted, uncomfortable under Sam's gaze. Sam slowly, hesitatingly, walked up to Dean's bed. Dean turned his head slightly, not yet ready to look at Sam and face his brother's guilt, but he could still feel Sam's eyes on his face. He knew he looked bad, that his nose was broken and his face a mess - he could feel one eye beginning to swell, could feel the dull stings and throbs indicating the amount of cuts and bruises he wore.

"Are you okay?" Sam finally asked.

"What have I told you about stupid questions?" But the sarcasm wasn't there. It was flat. Automatic. Dean didn't want to be mad at Sam, he really didn't, but he also didn't want to be lying in this fucking hospital bed with a broken nose and a punctured lung. You don't always get what you want.

Sam looked down for a moment, his fingers absently playing with the edge of the bed sheet. He shifted his weight from one foot to another and tugged at his shirt collar. Why was it so stuffy in here? Stalling, Sam swiveled his head to the side and saw a lone chair resting against the wall. He grabbed it, dragging it across the floor as its legs squeaked in protest. Sam accidentally hit it against the bedside table with a sound like a gunshot. He flung out his arms to steady the table, dropping the chair with a loud clatter. But finally, face flushed, Sam lowered himself onto the chair, forcing his hands to rest on his knees and resist fidgeting. He glanced over at his brother, ready for the smirk and wisecrack, but it didn't come. Dean's face had grown paler and his eyes were staring off into the distance.

"Dean…" Sam began, but Dean cut him off.

"It's okay. Not your fault. Forget it."

Sam took a shuddering breath, scuffing the floor with his shoe and feeling his face heat up in the effort to keep his emotions under control. In the span of a few hours he'd been tricked into a cave, battled with a corpse, had to listen to his brother's screams, was reunited with his dad only to have him leave again, and realised he'd almost killed Dean. All within a few hours! Sam would've collapsed from stress and exhaustion right there and then if it weren't for this figure lying in front him, this figure who refused to look him in the eye. Sam sighed and ran a hand over his face, leaning back in the chair. "Please, Dean - "

"Not in the mood, Sam!" Dean interrupted. Sam gaped a bit, before nodding softly. Dean sighed, berating himself for snapping like that. "Where's dad?" he finally asked.

Sam looked away, hoping Dean wouldn't see his tired tears. "He left."

Dean shut his eyes momentarily. "Did he forget the Get Well card?"

"He stayed until we knew you were okay. He said to tell you that, you know, he's relieved you pulled through. We both are."

Dean finally looked over. He watched Sam's eyes flit over his face and glance away again. Dean smirked. "Dork."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Nice," he smiled.

They were quiet for a few minutes, an awkward silence again descending between them. Their relationship had always been spotted with difference and misunderstanding, but never before had all those issues festered into such a large chasm that though they were sitting mere inches apart, neither knew what to say or how to stop feeling a million miles away. So for a few minutes they just sat, listening to Dean's heart monitor, to the distant sounds of voices in the hallway and to Sam's shoe as it scuffed the floor.

"Dean," Sam finally blurted out. "Look, man, I'm sorry, okay? Just…yell at me, get mad, do anything, but don't just say it's okay. Jesus…_I'd _be pissed off if this were the other way round." Sam watched Dean, the back of his neck prickling as he waited for a response.

Dean frowned and tried to lift himself higher on the pillows but gave up almost immediately. "You broke my nose, dude. I can forgive you dissing me for your dorky chums and shooting me again, but, dude, if I look in the mirror and see a football-thumped Marcia Brady staring back, I'm kicking your ass."

Sam sighed and resisted rolling his eyes. "Okay, you don't want to do the whole serious discussion thing, I get that. Just…I need to know that…that _you _know that I'd never, you know, hurt you. On purpose. Meg, she," Sam licked his lips, turning to stare out the small window. "She knew how to get into the right memories. I don't know how, I mean, it must have been that Vebiel - "

"The what?"

"Um, the Vebiel. That's what the thing was. It's old, maybe 2000 years. Meg's controlling it by, I don't know, trapping it's energy –it's free will, I guess - somewhere. A big somewhere. Dad doesn't know where."

"Oh, swell."

"But, Dean, about - "

"I know, Sam," Dean interrupted. "Dude, if I were really worried that your skinny ass wanted to whoop mine, do you think I'd be handing you '49s every time we go on a hunt? I'd be giving you a slingshot," he cocked his head to the side. "And even that would be risky. Goliath and all."

Sam snorted softly.

"But, uh…" Dean sighed and rolled his eyes, annoyed by how touchy-feely he was about to sound. _Must be the morphine. _

"Yeah?" Sam prompted.

Dean took a deep breath. "Do you really hate it that much? All this?"

Sam looked up, startled by the question, caught off guard. "No," he answered quickly, automatically, not giving himself time to think about it.

"Really? Because I think your subconscious begs to differ. I think deep down there in Sam-land you remember that you had a pretty sweet deal going on with me and dad out of the picture."

Sam frowned at this, guilt and pity clawing at his chest. "No, Dean. I mean, yes, I don't want to do this forever and I don't want to keep dangling my life in front of…demons and ghosts and god knows what else. But, I don't blame you for any of this. I just, I wish _you_ would consider a normal life one day too. There's more out there than this, Dean."

Dean rolled his eyes again. "One bridge at a time, Sammy. And anyway, you need guys like me to keep the streets safe for you lawyer types. Scum smells scum, you know."

Sam snorted again, before absently picking at the edge of Dean's hospital sheets. "I just don't want to keep seeing you in hospital gowns. Not really your color, you know?"

"They could be fluro pink and I'd still pull it off," Dean replied after a second, his voice growing gravelly as sleep began to invade his throat.

A nurse popped her head through the door. "You should probably let him get some rest now."

Sam nodded faintly. "Okay," he said. He stood up slowly, smiling at Dean. "I'll be back later, okay? Did you need anything?"

Dean's eyes were already beginning to droop. "Monica Bellucci."

"I'll see what I can do," Sam smirked. He slowly backed out of the room, weary to leave Dean alone again, but one look from the nurse told him he'd likely have to draw fists if he wanted to stay longer. So he headed to the bathrooms and soaked a paper towel, finally washing the dried blood from his face. He looked into the mirror and was startled to find a black symbol marring his cheek. He stepped closer, cautiously running his fingers over the symbol. It was the same one found on those five bodies dumped near the forest, and it marked the same place that Meg had pressed her hand, using the Vebiel's power to enter his head. He'd bet anything that underneath all those cuts and bruises, Dean's cheek held the same.

"Dammit," Sam muttered, tossing the reddened paper towel into the sink and clutching the sides of the basin. That other symbol, the dripping red one, had obviously been a, well, red herring. And, as Dean had pointed out, an illusion. So that meant it had been yet another mental construct of the Vebiel's. The Vebiel was powerful, and while there was still a chance it could enter their minds without any physical contact, it was dangerous.

Sam pulled his phone from his pocket and stormed out of the bathroom, sinking into one of the hard, plastic seats in the emptying waiting room. It might as well have been a Lazy Boy recliner for all his tired body cared. His eyes stinging from exhaustion and unshed tears; Sam dialed the number he could recite in his sleep. It rang and rang, a bell chiming in his ear, before his dad's answering machine finally picked up.

"Hey dad, it's, uh, Sam. Dean is," Sam laughed suddenly, everything becoming too much for him. But he ran a hand through his hair forced himself to calm down. "He's fine. But we need to know if you found Meg and destroyed whatever she's using to house the Vebiel's energy. So, call us, okay? And, uh, about before - " Sam was cut off by a loud beep, signaling the end of the message. Sam pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at it incredulously. He laughed again - abruptly, harshly - and shoved the phone back into his pocket, not caring that it was awkwardly wedged between his thigh and the armrest. He was beyond feeling discomfort. His head was a haze of red and his chest was burning with the effort not to crumble right there and then, in that waiting room, waiting for his brother to recover, waiting to hear back from their dad, to find Meg, to find Jess' killer, to see if his brother would ever look at him the same.

But Sam didn't crumble; he slid down the chair instead and stared at the smudged wall across from him, and waited. He waited for a week. He visited Dean every day, checked with the doctor on his progress, snuck him in greasy take-out to replace the hospital food, brought them clean clothes from the motel. He went back for Dean's car, watching the forest wearily but turning his back on it and the cave within. And he waited. Waited for their dad to call, waited for Meg to appear, waited to see if her control over the Vebiel would get stronger and enter Dean's head in one of his morphine-induced sleeps. Drugs were the only way to get Dean to sleep. The doctors were puzzled; they attributed his sleep resistance to trauma and shock. Sam did too.

Sam waited for Dean to mention that day again - that cave and what had happened there. But Dean refused to, he acted as if it were forgotten. But Sam knew better.

Dean slowly recovered. He was able to sit up within a few days, able to reach for the remote without grimacing within a few more. His face was still black and blue from the broken nose, but the cuts were healing over, and the gashes on his arms were no more than fleshy pink trails. By the seventh day, the symbol on their faces had disappeared, and on the eighth day, Sam's phone rang.

Sam and Dean had been arguing over who was more annoying, the Phil or the Oprah, when Sam's phone began vibrating, shaking the bedside table. Both looked over. Sam grabbed it and flipped it open. "Dad?" Sam listened for a second before frowning. "What do you mean she's gone?"

Dean propped himself up further on the pillows, watching Sam's face and trying to hear what their dad was saying.

"So you've been here the whole week, trying to find her?"

Dean tried not to feel stung. He swatted Sam's leg instead. "Ask him about the foggy thing."

"Dean wants to know if you've worked out what she's using to house the Vebiel's energy." Sam listened for a second before smiling slightly and glancing at Dean. "Yeah, his stubborn ass is doing pretty good, considering." Sam listened again, the smile dissolving into another frown. "What, but…no, dad – Okay! Yes, fine. Bye." Sam hung up and breathed deeply, trying to control his frustration.

"What?" Dean asked.

Sam looked over, finding it strange that Dean hadn't grabbed the phone off him the instant their dad had answered. "He said he's searched every inch of that cave, the forest and this town, but no sign of Meg or of where or what she's storing the Vebiel's energy in. He thinks she's skipped town, so he's left as well, back to the trail he was on before we called him. He thinks she's given up this round."

"That's bullshit!" Dean blurted, ripping off his covers angrily.

Sam jumped up, anticipating Dean's move. "Whoa, Dean, slow down, okay? You don't want to make your injuries worse."

Dean ignored the dull ache in his chest and ribs and pointed emphatically. "She's still out there, Sam, and she's going to keep drawing out and killing people unless we stop her! You said it yourself, until we destroy whatever she's storing the misty bitch's energy in, she's dangerous. Too dangerous."

"Okay," Sam soothed, warily picking up the edge of Dean's covers and drawing them back over him, only to have Dean fling them back off. "But, Dean, we have to work out where the energy is, first. No use going out guns blazing if we don't have a place to point."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You're such a loser sometimes."

Sam frowned. "Random insults aside, my point still stands. How are we going to find this...thing, object, whatever the hell it is?"

Dean shrugged and settled back into the pillows. "Beats me. But I'm stuck here in this bed, so you better run along and start finding out."

Sam scoffed. "You weren't so stuck in that bed a few seconds ago."

Dean grinned. "A little nursemaid showed me the error in my active ways. Pass me the remote would you, nursey?"

Sam laughed, chucking the remote onto Dean's lap. "Yeah, milk it up. I'll call you if I find something."

"Nuh uh, you'll come right here and tell me in person if you find something," Dean said, worried Sam might dive into this fight without him.

Sam smiled. "Then I'll be back as soon as I can."

Dean mock saluted Sam. Sam rolled his eyes and walked out, a smile dancing on his lips.

* * *

Sam stepped out of the hospital and stopped, frowning. In front of him were three exit routes, but Sam for the life of him didn't know which one to take because he had no clue where he wanted to go. Where he _could _go to try and find the place that Meg was storing the Vebiel's energy, especially if their dad had had no luck. _This had better not be a key-turned-little-sister situation. _Sam frowned at the thought. "My life is crazy," he muttered before hopping into the Impala and, more out of habit than anything, headed for the local library.

* * *

He'd been through every recent newspaper article, looked up every site for the local paranormal and had hacked into the police records to see if any more deaths or violence had been reported. He'd hit a dead end. Sam leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head and sighing. How was he meant to tell Dean that their dad was right – that it looked like Meg had skipped town and taken her pet fog with her? How was he meant to look at Dean's black and blue face and tell him they'd just have to let this one slide? That though they never let a hunt go unfinished, there was a first time for everything and this first had arrived a week after Dean had nearly died at his own brother's hands because of this fucking hunt. 

… "Oh totally freaky, and then they found her body dumped out near the forest."

Sam's ears pricked up, and he sat up straighter. What was that? He stood up and walked towards the voices, pretending to be browsing a shelf of books. Peeking through a gap in the row of books, Sam found himself staring at a group of four teenage girls sitting around a study table, schoolbooks lying forgotten on the table.

… "That chick Sarah, her sister was one of the victims, yeah?"

"Mmhm. If you ask me, their whole family is into some weird assed voodoo magic stuff – I mean, have you seen Sarah's black nails and her hair lately? It's like, totally green."

"I thought she was just going punk?"

"Ever thought that was just her, like, front?"

"Her what?"

"You know, her cover story, for her witchy ways?"

"Ah…wow, that so makes sense."

Sam smiled to himself. _Bingo_. If there was ever a way to find out something, town gossip was the way to do it. He grabbed a pad and pencil from his bag and walked up to the girls. They stopped talking immediately and glanced up at him.

"Hi," Sam said, smiling. "I couldn't help overhear your conversation just then."

The girls glanced at each other, wondering if they'd been saying something wrong, given it had only been a week since those victims were found and identified. But then one of the girls put her hand on her hip. "Yeah, what of it?" she said, looking Sam up and down.

Sam chuckled. "I'm a reporter. I'm not from around here, I work for a small magazine somewhere…not here, but I'd really love to hear from some local voices about the, uh, incident."

"You want to interview us?" another of the girls asked, sitting up straighter.

"Yeah, if you don't mind."

"Is there a photo opp?"

Sam looked at her and tried to resist smirking. "Maybe, I'll have to ask my supervisor. So you girls up to be interviewed?"

The three of them turned to look at the girl who had first spoken. She chewed her lip, watching Sam, before shrugging and moulding a bored expression onto her face. "Okay. Make it quick though, we have to study."

Sam pulled up a chair and flipped open his pad. "Uh, so you girls think one of the victims was into witchcraft, why do you say that?"

They looked at each other guiltily.

"It's okay," Sam said. "This can be off the record if you like."

One of the girls leaned forward eagerly. "Well, see, all this like weird shit has been happening lately and Sarah's family is connected to all of it."

"Really? You're friends with this Sarah girl?"

"Ew, no, she's a freak." The girl's eyes widened. "I mean, you know, I feel totally bad for her and her family for their, you know, loss and all, but no, she's not really one of us, you know?"

Sam smiled tightly, pretending to scribble some notes. "What kind of weird things?"

"She lives near our school, right? And we're always seeing like black cats running across the street when Sarah or her sister were around."

"Kim, doesn't the Sutton family own those cats?"

Kim glanced at her friend and frowned, thinking. "I'm sure they were ginger last time I saw 'em."

"Wow, freaky."

Sam mentally sighed; maybe this wasn't such a good idea. "Anything else?"

"Oh, lots. Like…they've got the whole Goth I-worship-Satan-to-be-cool thing going on. Oh, and the sister, the one who was killed, she used to babysit and that house with the black smoke."

"Black smoke?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, this house on the corner of Bourke, lately this black smoke has been, like, rising from it. Really weird."

"It's been cold lately, maybe they're just using their fireplace?"

The girl who'd been telling him the story smiled slowly. "The house has no chimney."

Sam's eyes widened. "Corner of Bourke, you said?"

* * *

Sam pulled the Impala up across the road from the house those girls had been talking about. It looked normal enough. A double story, minivan parked out front, lawn a bit overdue for a trim, curtains open. 

Sam grabbed his duffle bag and made sure that the EMF reader was safely tucked inside. He then hopped out and jogged up to the front door, listening to the doorbell chime for a few seconds before the door swung open. Sam found himself staring at…nothing. He frowned and looked down. There, craning her neck up at him, was little girl with a huge grin.

"HI!" the girl shouted.

Sam grinned. "Hi, uh, are your parents home?"

"Yes," the girl said, nodding emphatically. "You're BIG."

Sam laughed. "I guess I am. Do you think you could get them for me?"

"Okay." She abruptly turned and ran into the house.

A few seconds later a woman, obviously the mother, hurried forward. She was wiping her hands on a cloth and had flour stains on her pants legs. "Sorry about that," she said. "I've told her a million times not to answer the door but kids just don't listen."

Sam smiled. "She's a cute one."

Suddenly a crash resounded from within the house. Sam instantly tensed. The mother retreated into the house and craned her head into the adjacent room. "Joshua! I told you, ask me or your brother to get that for you."

"Why…" a voice complained in return.

"Because you're too short." She turned back to Sam, a smile on her face. "What can I do for you?"

Sam whipped out an ID he happened to have on him, too fast for her to actually read properly. "I'm here with the local council, we've been getting reports of strange, black smoke hanging over this area and we need to check each house to see if the toxins it carries has infiltrated any houses. I'll only be a minute," he added quickly, seeing her sigh and look back at her children.

"Okay," she said, moving aside to let him in. "It's not dangerous is it?"

"No," Sam smiled reassuringly, despite images of those five bodies flashing across his mind.

Sam walked past the living room and saw the kid, Joshua, arguing with his little sister over the remote. Their legs were scattering a forgotten Monopoly game as they fought. He traveled past them and towards the stairs, needing to find an empty room so he wouldn't have to explain the EMF. Stepping over a skateboard and a stuffed bear, Sam ascended the steps, looking at the framed photos on the wall as he did. The more he saw of this house the more he hoped that those girls' gossip had been just that: gossip. Nothing about this house made it a candidate to house an ancient spirit. A purple print rug covered the stairs, for crying out loud! Internal heating kept the autumn chill at bay, pictures of kids with toothy grins hung against each wall and he was pretty sure he just saw a pet gerbil in one of the rooms he passed.

"Dude, I'm on your team, stop shooting me!"

Sam glanced through an open doorway and saw two more kids, aged about 12, playing an X Box game. Sam sighed and drew out his EMF reader, ducking into an empty room. He turned it on and swung it around. It began to give off positive readings almost immediately. Sam looked up, startled and alert, his cheek already beginning to throb with phantom pain as he anticipated another attack on his memories. But nothing came. Sam cautiously swung the device closer to the walls – the readings increased. He clenched his teeth and shut the thing off impatiently. "Meg, you're a piece of work," he muttered. Trust her to trap the Vebiel's energy in an innocent family's house. What the fuck were they supposed to do now?

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Last Chapter - I really hope you guys enjoy! I'm starting to worry by the lack of reviews to the last chapter, have I missed the mark somewhere along the line?

**Choices: Chapter 8 (Last Chapter)**

Dean pulled his jacket on with a grimace. It had been eight days since he was beat to hell by his, well, mind, and though he could now move without gasping, there was still a lingering throb in his ribs and chest that flared up every time he did move, as if warning him to take it easy, take it slow. His body had taken enough beating in the past to know that Dean's version of rest was a day in front of the T.V before hurrying after the next demon, the next potential injury. So his ribs remained tender – a stubborn reminder that it takes time to heal.

"What are you doing?"

Dean turned to find Sam standing in the doorway, watching him with wide eyes. "Playing ping pong. What does it look like?"

Sam stepped further into the room, watching Dean fix his collar. Dean's movements were slow, careful. "Shouldn't the nurse be helping you with that?"

Dean paused to give Sam a look that screamed: _Are you serious? Do I look five?_ He then sat on the bed and lifted his leg onto its edge, gritting his teeth as he bent forward and starting tying his laces. "Shouldn't _you_ be knocking when a door's closed?" Dean asked, trying to ignore how fucking difficult this one little task was. "Had you barged in a few minutes earlier, you'd have caught me dressing a different part. And _that_, that would've been awkward."

"Thank god for good timing," Sam muttered, watching Dean's progress with a frown. He was itching to help, but knew Dean would be unforgivably insulted if he did. Yeah, his brother's logic was…unique. He'd forgive you shooting him, but would hold a grudge if you tried to help him afterwards.

Dean finally finished tying the laces, lowering his legs back to the floor. He leaned back and shoved his hands into his pockets to hide their shaking. God, he hated this. He hated being vulnerable to the whims of a broken body. He knew of only one thing that'd make him feel better – a good ass kicking. "Did you find where your girlfriend's hiding the fog?"

Sam took a deep breath. "Yeah, I did actually."

Dean straightened. "I need to give that squishy thing between your ears a bit more credit. How'd you find it?"

Sam scratched his head. "Um…well, a bunch of 15 year old girls told me, actually."

Dean smirked. "Or maybe not. So where is it?"

Sam ran his hands through his hair. "A house. She has it trapped in a house."

"Huh. Well dad said it would be big. A house is big. Okay, so what? It doesn't know how to open a door and fly, or, you know, float on out?"

"No, Dean," Sam said, his frustration at the whole situation breaking through his voice. "It's trapped there in the walls, in the actual structure. It's…melded with the damn house."

Dean frowned. "So, we just burn it down, what's got your panties all twisted?"

"It's not just some abandoned building up in the forest. It's someone's home. An innocent family's home. Lots of kids, and toys and Playstations and a freakin' pet gerbil!"

Dean's eyes widened and his mouth slid open. "Oh you're kidding me? You're not kidding me? Jesus. Could this week get any worse?"

Sam sunk into the chair he'd been using for the past week. "What are we meant to do?"

Dean stood up and starting pacing in Sam's place, his mind racing. "Another way, one that doesn't involve any actual burning or, you know, pulverizing."

Sam threw up a hand. "Dad didn't say there were any alternative ways to get rid of it, and I can't find _any _lore about the thing."

Dean balled his hands into fists. "What a _bitch!_ You know why she chose that house, right? Because of the kids. Her…Vulcan mind meld thing told her we have, you know, soft spots for the little brats."

San smiled. "Yeah, you do, don't you?"

Dean shot him a glare. "I said _we._" He sat down on the edge of the bed, absently rubbing his ribs. "Were any of the first five victims connected to that house?"

"Um, yeah, one used to babysit there."

Dean nodded slowly, his eyes staring distantly as he absorbed this information. He looked up at Sam. "Let's hope they have insurance."

"What?" Sam spluttered. "We're really going to burn it down?"

Dean shrugged. "No choice. Meg chose that house for a reason, to use that family as leverage. If we leave this town with the V-Vee – whatever the fuck it is – if we leave it under her control, what's stopping her from killing those kids to draw us back?" Dean held up his hands, weighing their choices. "Lives…house…lives…house. I'm betting they'd appreciate their lives more." Dean looked at Sam, silently imploring with him not to argue. He didn't think he could handle the weight of this decision on his own, his mind involuntarily flashing back to their Kansas home engulfed by loud orange flames.

Sam nodded. "Okay," he said gently. He stood up and felt his pockets for his phone. "I'll call them now, say we need to evacuate the house for the night."

"Wait." Dean grabbed his wallet from the night table and pulled out one of their credit cards. He chucked it to Sam. "There's a production of The Lion King playing in the Bourke theatre. Buy the family tickets and say they've won 'em or something."

Sam picked up the credit card and grinned.

Dean caught the look and rolled his eyes. "Dude, we're about to torch their house. The least we can do is be nice about it."

Sam chuckled and went to make the call.

* * *

Sam pulled the Impala up alongside the house and cut the engine. "Think they're gone by now?" Sam asked, trying to see if there were any shadows moving beyond the curtains.

"Car's gone," Dean pointed out, leaning over Sam to look out the window. "Let's torch this sucker."

Sam hopped out of the Impala and opened the trunk, grabbing a can of oil and some matches. He looked up a few seconds later when the passenger door finally slammed shut. Dean walked towards him stiffly. "Dean," Sam implored, his concern finally breaking through. "Are you sure you're up for this, man?"

Dean yanked the canister from Sam's hands. "Yes, mother, I think I can spill some oil and flick a match, thanks."

Sam sighed and stepped back. "After you, Rambo."

Dean mimicked the move, refusing to be mocked. "After you, Goldilocks."

Sam strode forward, breathing out through his nose to keep from retorting.

They disarmed the alarm system and picked the manual locks with ease. Once inside they began dousing the house in oil. The lights remained off; it was too risky otherwise. Not only might a neighbour grow suspicious, but neither wanted to look at what they were really burning down – photos, toys, furniture, a home. It was better just to think of it as a house, an empty house.

A sudden crash followed by a loud clamber left Sam's ears ringing and he whipped around, alert, squinting through the dark. He relaxed, though, when he heard Dean muttering.

"Ow! Son of a fucker. Who the hell leaves crap in the middle of the floor? Son of a bitch."

Sam couldn't help chuckling. "You okay?" he smirked.

"Shh."

Sam frowned. "I was just -"

"Shh!" Dean flapped his arms, gesturing at Sam to be quiet. He cocked his head to the side and listened. "Do you hear that? It's coming from upstairs." Without waiting for an answer, Dean hurried towards the stairs, limping on the leg he'd banged against the table after slipping on whatever the hell he'd slipped on. Sam quickly followed. Once upstairs, Dean held up his hand for quiet once again. "Hear that?" he whispered.

Sam nodded slowly. "Yeah." It sounded like…mumbling, talking, rustling.

Dean limped over to a door that was half open and peered through it. He visibly sighed and pushed the door the rest of the way open so that Sam could see what was inside: two _occupied _beds. One of the kids was tossing and turning, mumbling in her sleep. Sam's mouth slid open and he looked at Dean.

"What kind of parents leaves their kids at home when they go frolicking off to a musical? I paid for six tickets, dammit," Dean muttered angrily, moving away from the door so his voice wouldn't wake them.

"Obviously tired parents who needed a break. I can't believe we didn't think of that."

"Son of a flying fuck. Now what?"

"Well curb the swearing for one, we have kids around…Ow." Dea punched him.

"I have an idea," Dean said, but instead of filling Sam in, he moved further down the hall and cupped his hands around his mouth. "FIRE! FIRE!" The last shout ended in a small coughing fit as his chest burned, but Dean grinned when a small stampede met his call. Four children of varying height, all with curly brown hair, came running from their rooms.

"Come on, hurry downstairs, you need to get out of here," Sam played along, gently pushing them forward. He looked over at Dean and shook his head, a smile dancing on his lips. Captain Obvious. His brother possessed no subtlety, but it worked well for them.

They quickly followed after the kids, only to find light flooding the downstairs living room with the kids huddled in the middle. "Come on guys, we gotta move," Dean said, trying to keep the urgency in his voice, gesturing emphatically towards the exit.

One the boys put his hand on his hip and glared at Dean defiantly. "There's no fire!"

Dean raised his eyebrows, at a loss for a second. "…Yeah this is."

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Okay!" Sam said, jumping in. "Look," he said, turning to the boy. "There isn't one that you can see, but…there _will_ be one, so we have to get you out of here, okay?"

The boy's eyes widened. "You're arsonists?"

"What? No."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Nice one, genius."

"I'm calling the cops!"

"Wait, wait." Sam held out his hands and took a step back to show that they weren't dangerous. He took a deep breath; what the hell… the truth tended to sit better with kids than it did adults, it was worth a try. "Your house is haunted. By this...black mist, I guess you could call it. And it's been hurting people, and the only way to stop it is to…burn your house down. And I'm really sorry that we have to do that, but it's the only way this…mist…will stop hurting people. Can you understand that?"

The boy blinked up at him and then turned to his sister who looked a year or two younger. "These bozos still believe in ghosts."

"Hey!" Dean interjected.

"Okay, look, do you know about those five people who were found, um…" Sam struggled to find a right word, suddenly feeling responsible for what he filled their heads with given they were all just staring up at him, listening.

"Dead? At the end of the forest, yeah? It was on the news," the boy filled in, unfazed.

"Ten year olds watch the news?" Dean asked.

"I'm twelve."

"Ooh," Dean rolled his eyes.

The boy looked Dean up and down, defiance shining in his eyes. "How old are you? 40? And you still believe in the boogeyman?"

"40!"

"Dean," Sam snapped, feeling a headache coming on. He turned back to the boy. "Please, this is your house and of course it's your decision, but think about your brothers and sisters. They're in danger the longer you guys stay here. Believe me, I wish that there was another way but…there isn't."

Sam watched them all for a second, letting that information sink in. He felt…dirty, like he was manipulating these kids, revealing to them a world that they shouldn't have access to. But like Dean had said, they had no choice. A second later, Sam felt something tugging at his pants. He looked down to see the little girl from morning grinnig up at him.

"You're a GIANT." She opened her arms wide. "ROAR."

Sam blinked at her and Dean snorted. Sam looked from Dean to the girl and back, finally resigned to the fact that his speeches about supernatural peril and doing the right thing worked far better on scared women than it did on little not-so-scared kids.

"Let me handle this, bozo." Dean pushed Sam aside. "Hey kid," he said to the boy. "I'll play ya for it. Any Playstation Game you want. You win," he shrugged, "we leave. I win, _you _leave."

The boy's eyes lit up. "You're on!"

Another voice entered the mix - young and scared - one of the sisters. "Black mist…like…that up there?"

Dean and Sam's heads whipped up to find the same fog from the cave floating along the ceiling. It spiked suddenly and dived for the youngest girl. She screamed. Acting on instinct, forgetting his injuries, Dean dived for the girl, grabbing her a mere second before the black mist collided with the spot where she'd been standing. Dean grit his teeth and shut his eyes against the explosion of pain racking through his chest. But he held the girl close to him, ignoring how heavy her tiny frame felt against his healing ribs. "Come on," he wheezed out, gesturing to the group of screaming children. "Quickly! Move!" With the girl clutching his neck painfully, screaming and crying into his shoulder, and with his arms shaking with the effort to keep her from slipping despite the rivulets of pain shooting up from where her legs were pressed against his ribs, Dean staggered towards the front door.

Sam quickly ushered the rest of the kids forward, keeping a weary eye on the fog floating on top of them. Suddenly, it dived again, but instead of aiming for the kids it wrapped itself around Sam's legs and yanked. Sam fell to the ground with a thud, his breath instantly stolen from him. The fog pulled and Sam found himself sliding across the floor.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, turning at the noise. He lowered the little girl and ran after his brother but stopped short when the girl's piecing scream broke through the ruckus. Dean whipped around to find the fog aiming for her again. He quickly drew out the pistol tucked into his waistband and fired a round of rock salt at the fog. It instantly dissolved and returned to the cloud of fog now dancing and swirling on the ceiling.

"Dean!"

Dean whipped back around just in time to see Sam disappear into a room and the door slam shut.

"Fuck!" Dean turned from the door to the kids, torn. Gritting his teeth, he ran towards the young group and randomly grabbed a hand in each of his, pulling them forward. He yanked at the front door, silently grateful when it opened without resistance. "Hurry, hurry," he said, waving them through the door, glancing back at the room Sam had disappeared into.

"Wait." Dean reached out and stopped the young boy they'd been arguing with mere minutes ago. His young defiance had given way to teary eyes and shaky breath. Glancing back at the door that Sam had disappeared behind, Dean fumbled in his pocket and pulled out the Impala's keys. "Here," he said, holding them out. The kid hesitatingly reached out and wrapped his hand around them. "I want you, hey kid, you with me?" Dean grabbed the kid's shoulder firmly, reassuringly. The boy nodded. "Okay, good. I want you to grab your brothers and sisters and get into my car, it's that one across the street. I want you to lock the doors and stay there until I come get you, okay? Can you do that?" The boy nodded, clutching the keys and straightening his shoulders. "Hey," Dean said, stopping him once more. "Whatever you do, don't try to drive the damn thing, got that?" The boy smiled slightly and nodded again. He looked up at Dean and back at his house before running out onto the lawn where his siblings were waiting. Dean shut the door firmly behind them before turning and rushing after Sam. But he skidded to a stop when a familiar blonde-haired figure stepped out in front of him.

"Damn, you're alive," Meg said, crossing her arms and smiling. She'd planted herself right between Dean and the room that Sam was trapped inside.

"Get out of my way or I swear…" Dean trailed off, his voice lowering menacingly.

"Aw, sorry baby, you've had your turn. Sammy's my pet's new playmate."

The pain in his chest blended with his anger and his vision melted into red until all he could see was her smug face and until all he could feel was the rage. Not really aware of it, without really feeling it, Dean balled his hand in a tight fist, pulled back his arm and swung - aimlessly, mercilessly, unforgivingly - at the bitch in front of him who was trying to hurt his family. He connected with her nose and a loud, sharp crack rang out. The next thing either of them knew, she was flying through the air and colliding with a table, breaking it in half, toppling over the vase of flowers, shattering the framed pictures, scattering the dish of fruit.

Dean unballed his fist and looked and the blood on it, shocked. He looked over at Meg who was just lying there, stunned. "You better pray my brother isn't hurt." Dean ran up to the closed door and twisted the knob, pressing against the door with all his weight. It wouldn't budge. "Sammy!" A cry of pain replied and Dean backed up, eyes widening, heart quickening, fear robbing him of his breath. Not caring that his own injuries were protesting something ferocious, Dean lifted his leg and kicked the door, ignoring the shock waves rushing through his body and shaking his vision. The door dented and creaked, but remained sturdy. "Sam!" Dean called again, ramming his shoulder into the door, again and again.

* * *

The black fog had unfurled the instant it had pulled Sam into that room. It had unfurled and Sam had sprung up, turning to escape only to have the door slam shut. It slammed shut just as Sam's head whipped to the side as his cheek began to sizzle; it slammed shut drowning his cry as he fell to his knees and felt his memories perused, invaded, stolen from him. And then Sam gasped as something, something invisible, sliced into his arm.

"You aren't real," Sam mumbled, standing up and backing away from the shadow demons. "You're just memories. I know that now. So, just…leave!" Sam sucked in air as another jagged scratch appeared on the same arm, shredding his sleeve, decorating his arm red. Fear spiked up Sam's spine and he spun around, watching their shadows dance and flicker on the wall. "I don't believe in you," he whispered, watching the shadows' movements carefully, cautiously, fearfully. "I don't believe in you. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Sam felt himself shoved and he flew into the wall, his arms legs and back pinned there by invisible forces as claws tore into him, shredding his shirt, slicing into his chest, his torso, his arms, his face. Sam cried out, shutting his eyes against the pain erupting in his body, searing with every scratch, streaming from him with every drop of blood that splattered onto the walls and floor.

* * *

Dean heard Sam cry out again and in an act of unforeseen strength, threw everything he had into that door – every bit of strength, of concern, of protectiveness, everything. Though it still caught him off guard when the wood splintered and he found himself careening through a broken door, his feet catching on the remaining frame so that he landed sprawled on the floor beneath. Dean's hands landed on something wet. Blood. Dean's head whipped up and he froze. Pinned to the wall was Sam, glistening cuts decorating his flesh – a crisscross of red.

"Sam!" Dean yelled, jumping up and rushing forward.

At the sound of his name, Sam looked over at Dean, opening his mouth to say something but rolling his eyes back into his head and falling unconscious instead. Whatever force was pinning him to the wall disappeared and Sam slumped. Dean scrambled forward and caught his brother's limp form, Sam's head and arms falling across Dean's shoulders. Dean tried to support Sam's weight, he really did, but given how beat up his own body was, and the physical effort it had taken him to break through that door, Dean simply had no strength left. His knees buckled and he fall backwards, all of Sam's weight landing on top of him in what felt like the crushing impact of a tidal wave. Dean gasped, suddenly unable to breathe. He clenched his teeth and tried to pry Sam off without hurting Sam in the process, but his fingers were weak and his arms shaking too badly to be of any real use.

Just when his vision began to fade and an unwanted sleep began to cloud his head, he felt Sam stir and quickly jump up when he realized he was crushing his brother. Dean gasped, choking and coughing, greedily gulping in air.

"Oh god, Dean, are you okay?" Sam grabbed Dean's arm and helped pull him into a sitting position.

Dean nodded, waving off Sam's concern. "Just enjoying the whole breathing thing."

Sam took in a shaky breath, looking from his brother to the blood splattered room. His own blood. He used the edge of his shirt to wipe some of it from his eyes, ignoring the sting the fabric caused as it grazed the cuts on his face.

"Are you okay?" Dean asked, watching Sam with concern.

"Yeah," Sam sighed. "Just a few new scars to add to my collection."

Dean frowned and moved Sam's face to the side. On his cheek sat that black symbol. "The Vebiel did this? You forgot that it wasn't real again?"

"No, that's the thing," Sam said, looking at Dean in confusion. "I knew it was fake, that it was just the Vebiel dredging up old memories, but that didn't stop those memories from, you know, attacking."

"That doesn't make sense," Dean said, slowly lifting himself from the ground and testing the strength of his legs. "If you don't believe in what it's showing you, its power's gone. I've played Nintendo games with more complicated rules."

Sam hopped up too, his confusion overpowering the stings and throbs pulsating through his body. "But I didn't believe in them; I knew the shadow demons weren't real, that they're in the past."

Dean thought about this for a second before realization dawned and he shut his eyes, laughing hollowly.

"What?"

Dean glanced at his brother, his eyes traveling over the torn clothes and red trails marring his body. "But you believe in the threat. You may not have believed that you were back in that warehouse with the daevas, but the threat of our lives, of the things we hunt, that's real. That's always been real for you."

But before Sam had a chance to absorb this, to respond, he was forced to watch Dean flung across the room by the black fog, Dean's back colliding with the window in a storm of shattered glass.

"Dean!" Sam began to shout, before he too was flung into a wall, connecting with a loud thud as plaster rained on his hair.

Meg flung open the splintered door and walked it, slamming it shut behind her. Blood trickled from her nose and was smeared across her face. Her shoulders were damp and had flower petals plastered to them. She looked at Dean, anger sparking in her eyes. "Payback's a bitch." Under her breath she muttered something in Latin and stretched out her arms. The black fog began swirling around the room, faster and faster, picking up loose leafs of paper and swirling them around with it until all Dean or Sam could see was a black wind spotted with bits of white, and until all they could feel was their hair whipping and their clothes wrapping around them like straightjackets.

Both cried out as a clap resounded and two black arrows shot out from the twirling wind, striking their cheeks, sizzling and burning them, spiking into their thoughts, their memories, pulling, tugging, invading. Choosing. And then Sam cried out and fell to the floor as he felt himself…pulled…felt his mind stretched and forced away from him.

The next thing Sam knew the black mist was gone and he found himself sitting in the Impala, its engine idle, on a dark stretch of road. Beside him sat Dean, free of any bruises, looking as confused as Sam felt. Compared to the twirling, rampaging fog, the quiet felt almost surreal, the still air almost predatory.

"We're back on Route 666! But…this is my memory. You're not meant to be here." Dean looked at Sam and widened his eyes. "Which might explain why you're transparent. Dude, you're a Casper!"

"What?" Sam quickly looked down at himself and got the fright of his life. He could see the passenger seat through his torso! "Holy shit."

"That pretty much sums it up."

"What did she do?" Sam asked, waving his hand in front of him and seeing a distorted version of the Impala staring back through his flesh. "Merged our memories? Put me in yours?"

Dean shrugged. "Beats me."

A pair of headlights suddenly switched on, their beam cutting through the dark and swathing the car with a hazy yellow glow. An engine revved up and black metal glinted in the moonlight.

Dean stared at the phantom truck with growing dread. "Oh, shit."

Sam looked from the truck to Dean, then back at his transparent body. "Dean, this was my dream, the sacred ground doesn't work this time round, she's trying to kill you! Stop thinking about it, it's done, in the past, remember? Don't believe it."

Dean forced his eyes away from the truck, though it was a hard thing to ignore, sitting at the top of the street like that: waiting, taunting, ready. "I don't. You do."

Sam froze. "What?"

Dean glanced back over at the truck, absently grabbing his seatbelt and clipping it into place. "Sam, if there's ever been a time to just listen and not question what I'm telling you, it's now. I've worked out how to resist the Vebiel's power so that's why you're sitting here all see-through like. She needs _your_ beliefs to get _my_ death scene working. So…start thinking about something else! Ignore the truck and ignore me. Laurie – she was a little hottie, right? Go have some dirty thoughts." His eyes kept sliding back to the truck. It was jerking back and forth now, building up its power, getting ready to attack.

Sam followed Dean's gaze, anxiety building up in his own chest. "But…no, I don't Dean! I know this isn't real."

Suddenly Dean's chest and ribs began to throb with pain as his injuries rematerialized. Dean grit his teeth but couldn't help gasping as his cuts and bruises reformed on his face, the damage he'd re-inflicted on himself from barging through that door now intruding on their memories and reminding Sam and him both of the hurt the Vebiel had already caused and was still capable of.

"It works different for you, Sam," Dean wheezed out, trying to ignore the throbbing in his chest and concentrate on Sam, on getting through to him what was happening. "You believe the threat, not the thing. And, baby brother, if you have any issues with me tucked deep down in your subconscious somewhere, now's the time to bring it up. You want a chick flick moment? I'm all ears." The phantom truck revved up challengingly and Dean gripped the steering wheel, his hands slick with sweat, his facing warming up as fear spiked through his chest. "Is there any chance that somewhere deep down there in repressed-Sam-land you believe getting me out of the picture will get you a normal life again? A better chance to find Dad and keep him around this time?"

Sam's eyes widened and he reached out to steady Dean as the injuries started to make him shiver - or was it the fear? - but his hand swiped right through him. "No, Dean, god of course not."

"Spare my feelings, Sammy. I prefer them crushed than my body. I trusted you once on this road, I just need you to be as sure as you were then, okay? Just…stop believing in the danger, in the fucking ghost truck and in the Vebiel's fucking power. Believe that we're, you know, fucking stronger than all that."

They both looked up as the truck revved its engine again and jerked forward, speeding towards them, its headlights growing bigger and brighter by the second. Sam's head whipped from the looming truck to his brother's battered body as Dean watched the truck with fear – untamed, unhidden – shining in his eyes. Sam shut his own eyes and tried to do what Dean asked, tried to forget the fear that clung to him every day, the anger and regret. He prayed for it to be banished, hoped, begged and screamed, knowing that Dean's life depended on him being able to forget the danger, the threat; to forget Jess in flames and his life before college. Forget all of it and believe that this life with Dean, this hunt, wasn't all just about death and terror. He had to see in it what Dean did, had to find something to believe in other than death and revenge.

But when Sam opened his eyes, he was still stuck in that car and Dean was still next to him, the truck mere seconds from collision. Sam looked at his brother, guilt and grief battling in his eyes, robbing him of his voice. And Dean realised Sam couldn't do it, couldn't stop this. But he felt no blame, no regret or anger. Dean smiled at Sam instead, offering his usual grin and shrugging slightly. "In a blaze of glory," he laughed, before the headlights bathed his face yellow and the cars collided.

Sam woke up with a start. He was back in that room; the road and the Impala gone, flung from his mind like an unwanted intruder. _Dean. _Sam whipped around and froze, slumped on the floor, back to him, unmoving, was Dean. Forgetting how to breathe, how to speak or even think, Sam relied on his instincts to propel him off the floor and over to his brother.

_No, no, no, no. _Sam chanted the word over and over in his head; a mantra keeping him sane while memories of the car and the sound of metal colliding with metal danced and twirled relentlessly in his head. He reached his brother and gently turned him over. Dean's eyes stared blankly. "Dean?"

Oh god… 

But then Dean's eyes slid towards him. "Atta boy, Sammy."

"Dean!" Sam half laughed, half cried, grabbing Dean and folding him into a tight hug, shutting his eyes and letting the relief pour through his body. He'd did it, he'd found something in this life to believe in other than death and revenge: His family.

"…you mind Yogi Bear-ing me after my ribs are all reset," Dean wheezed.

Sam instantly let go, laughing happily, hysterically. Feeling slowly returning to his body as his heart slowed down, he stared at Dean and smiled, shaking his head.

Dean smirked, lightly shoving Sam's shoulder. "This doesn't really count as an I-owe-you-my-life thing, you know, since I had to talk you into it and all. Just in case you're getting any let-me-pick-the-music-because-I-saved-your-life ideas."

Sam laughed, picking himself up off the ground and reaching out to help Dean, who still looked a bit pale and shaky from the close call. "You know it's a wonder we're not more emotionally fucked up, given what we do for a living."

Dean grinned, grabbing the wall to steady himself. "Give it time."

A low moan intruded on their conversation. Both looked up to find Meg stirring awake. The force of Sam breaking her hold on his mind so abruptly must have flung her into unconsciousness. An anger unlike anything he'd felt before ripped through Sam's chest. He strode towards Meg and swung his fist, connecting, splitting the skin on her cheek, forcing her back to the ground with a stunned grunt. "I'm a bit sick of these games, Meg," Sam spat. He looked back at Dean. "Pass me that rope."

Dean was still slightly bent over, still clutching the wall for support, but he was looking at Sam with surprise etched onto his face.

"Dean. The rope."

"Right, rope." Dean swiveled around, eyes squinting through the dark. "What rope?"

"The uh…skipping rope."

Dean paused, raising an eyebrow. "You serious?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Just pass it to me."

"You're the boss, Yogi Bear." He clutched his ribs and slowly bent down, snatching the pink rope from the ground and tossing it to Sam.

Sam caught it and used it to bind Meg's arms together. Too stunned to fight or call upon the Vebiel, Meg just rolled her head to the side and glared at him. "This isn't over. You're not going to win this one. You're all going to die at his hands."

"Yeah, yeah," Dean replied. "And our little dog too?"

"You won't be laughing when your burning on the ceiling like mommy and Jess!"

Sam tightened the knot binding her hands and leaned back, dusting his hands off. "And you won't be laughing when you're burning with this house."

Meg's eyes widened. "You can't do this!"

Sam pat her on her head and grinned. "You and I? I just don't think we're working out. Bye, Meg." He stood up and grabbed one of Dean's arms, helping him out of the room.

A grin that rivaled the Cheshire cat's adorned Dean's face. He looked over at Meg and pointed to Sam, raising his eyebrows. "My brother just grew a pair, what do you know." He addressed Sam: "Must be my influence over this past year."

Sam scoffed. "Come on."

Feeling ridiculously slow and sluggish, they limped their way from the house, supporting each other other's weight. Sam grabbed the front door and pulled it open. Both stopped and frowned at the sight that met them. The four kids, still dressed in their pajamas, where in the process of dragging a heap of their possessions across the front lawn and onto the sidewalk. They'd managed to rescue what looked like all their game consoles and DVDs, some clothes, a skateboard, dolls, and what looked like… the good china.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, getting their attention. "What happened to waiting in the car?"

"Dude, we're not leaving our stuff to be burned," the boy said, defiance back in place.

Dean looked at Sam incredulously. "Is this kid serious? While we were in there getting our asses whooped, they were rescuing their playtoys?"

"And mommy's plates!" the little girl chimed in.

Sam couldn't help laughing. "And their mother's china. Looks that way."

"Huh. Kids after my own heart."

Dean let Sam support him down the porch and then they both turned to look at the house. It sat silent, curtains billowing slightly in the wind. The curtains were purple, you'd never guess the place was housing something so dangerous. But the front door stood open and even from here they could see the black fog coiling around the ceiling emitting a dark shadow, an oily glow.

Sam reached into his pocket and pulled out the box of matches. He passed them to Dean. Dean took them with a nod of thanks. He slid the box open and pulled out a single match, lighting it with a flick of his wrist. He held it for a second, watching the small flame flicker, feeling the heat lick his fingers. He glanced back at the kids who were sitting around their possessions, watching, waiting. Dean tossed the match into the open door.

The flame caught on the spilt oil immediately, traveling through the house at a greedy, merciless speed. It shot out through the windows, exploding the glass so that it sprinkled down on the front lawn while angry, thick smoke furled out through the windows.

Somewhere inside the house came the sound of another window breaking and then the sound of running footsteps.

"She's gone," Dean needlessly pointed out. He never doubted she would escape.

"Yeah," Sam said. He hadn't tied the rope tight enough for her not to escape.

More windows exploded, flames shooting out, reaching for the boys. Sam and Dean covered their faces, forced back. Smoke was already beginning to smother the lawn and coat their faces and clothing with black soot. The kids grabbed their stuff and ran to the opposite side of the street. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, people began poking their heads out of windows, began running out on the street, mouths gaping, hands wrapping their bathrobes tighter. Car alarms sounded and dogs barked, responding to the commotion.

Dean and Sam stood, watching, shaken, the dancing flames reflected in their eyes and bathing their faces with an orange glow. Neither had expected the house to burn this quickly, with this much force. The sounds of beams collapsing reached their ears and more dust and flames sprang out from the house. The flames seemed to come alive under their very gaze: they waved at the world, danced on the roof, taunting, screaming, set free. And Dean saw reflected in them his mother on the ceiling, his happiness burnt away with Sammy's crib, and Sam saw Jess' body pinned to the ceiling, his future engulfed by the hot pain that was now licking his face as this house burnt stronger.

"We should go," Sam said, hearing the sirens draw closer.

Dean nodded, looking over at the kids who were staring at their house with wide eyes and gaping mouths. To them it was spectacle, a show, but they'd feel the loss soon enough, they'd feel it when they saw a rotted black carcass staring back at them from where their home used to stand.

"We had to," Sam said gently, following his gaze.

"Yeah, I know," Dean said. "Doesn't mean it can't suck."

They headed for their car and hopped in. Dean held his ribs protectively.

"Hey, man, are you okay?" Sam asked.

Was he okay? Dean's mind flashed back to the cave, to Sam's happy smile while with his friends in Stanford, to Sam pulling the trigger without a regret in his eyes, to waking up alone in a hospital bed and finding out his dad had left without a word, and to that glimpse of an arm and white cloth in flames on the ceiling, 22 years ago, before his dad's looming figure had eclipsed the sight of her burning body, baby Sam in his arms. Dean looked at Sam's worried face. "Yeah," he said with those images dancing in his head. He smirked. "You know someone might mistake you for a 50 year old European woman with the amount of worrying you do."

Sam scoffed. "I'm sure, Dean." He started the engine and pulled the car from the curb.

"Seriously, dude, botox is expensive."

"Dean."

"Samantha."

"Oh god."

Dean chuckled and buckled his belt, switching on his music and trying to ignore the flames dancing in the distance.

THE END

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Hope you've enjoyed! If you've been reading up until now, please leave me a review and let me know you're out there. It's been great fun and another story will be in the works shortly. Thank you to everyone who's reviwied, you guys rock!  



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